Y.M. No—at least, not yet. But take the case of servant—tipping in Europe. You pay the _hotel_ for service; you owe the servants _nothing_, yet you pay them besides. Doesn’t that defeat it? O.M. In what way? Y.M. You are not _obliged_ to do it, therefore its source is compassion for their ill-paid condition, and— O.M. Has that custom ever vexed you, annoyed you, irritated you? Y.M. Well, yes. O.M. Still you succumbed to it? Y.M. Of course. O.M. Why of course? Y.M. Well, custom is law, in a way, and laws must be submitted to—everybody recognizes it as a _duty_. O.M. Then you pay for the irritating tax for _duty’s_ sake? Y.M. I suppose it amounts to that. O.M. Then the impulse which moves you to submit to the tax is not _all_ compassion, charity, benevolence? Y.M. Well—perhaps not. O.M. Is _any_ of it? Y.M. I—perhaps I was too hasty in locating its source. O.M. Perhaps so. In case you ignored the custom would you get prompt and effective service from the servants? Y.M. Oh, hear yourself talk! Those European servants? Why, you wouldn’t get any at all, to speak of. O.M. Couldn’t _that_ work as an impulse to move you to pay the tax? Y.M. I am not denying it. O.M. Apparently, then, it is a case of for-duty’s-sake with a little self-interest added? Y.M. Yes, it has the look of it. But here is a point: we pay that tax knowing it to be unjust and an extortion; yet we go away with a pain at the heart if we think we have been stingy with the poor fellows; and we heartily wish we were back again, so that we could do the right thing, and _more_ than the right thing, the _generous_ thing. I think it will be difficult for you to find any thought of self in that impulse. O.M. I wonder why you should think so. When you find service charged in the _hotel_ bill does it annoy you? Y.M. No. O.M. Do you ever complain of the amount of it? Y.M. No, it would not occur to me. O.M. The _expense_, then, is not the annoying detail. It is a fixed charge, and you pay it cheerfully, you pay it without a murmur. When you came to pay the servants, how would you like it if each of the men and maids had a fixed charge? Y.M. Like it? I should rejoice! O.M. Even if the fixed tax were a shade _more_ than you had been in the habit of paying in the form of tips? Y.M. Indeed, yes! O.M. Very well, then. As I understand it, it isn’t really compassion nor yet duty that moves you to pay the tax, and it isn’t the _amount_ of the tax that annoys you. Yet _something_ annoys you. What is it? Y.M. Well, the trouble is, you never know _what_ to pay, the tax varies so, all over Europe. O.M. So you have to guess?