And then, perhaps for the first time, Martin appreciated his employer’s fine kindness and essential loyalty. It would have been quite easy for the innkeeper to dismiss his waiter from the consideration of the hierarchy of Brantôme as a mad Englishman, an adventurer, not a professor at all, but a broken-down teacher of languages giving private lessons—an odd-job instructor who finds no respect in highly centralised, bureaucratic France; but the easy way was not the way of Gaspard Bigourdin. So Martin, driven by _force majeure_, lent himself to the pious fraud and, when the evening’s work was done, divested himself of his sable panoply of waiterdom and once more took his place in the reserved cosy corner of the Café de l’Univers. The agreeable acidity in his life which he missed when Corinna, graciously dignified, had steamed off by the night train, he soon discovered in the pursuit of his new avocation. Euphémie, the cook, whose surreptitious habits of uncleanliness carefully hidden from Félise, but unavoidably patent to an agonised Martin, supplied as much sourness as his system required. She would not take him seriously and declared her antipathy to _un monsieur_ in her kitchen. To bring about an _entente cordiale_ was for Martin an education in diplomacy. The irritability of a bilious commercial traveller, poisoned by infected nourishment at his last house of entertainment—the reason invariably given for digestive misadventure—so that his stomach was dislocated, often vented itself on the waiter serving an irreproachable repast at the Hôtel des Grottes. The professional swallowing of outraged feelings also gave a sub-acid flavour to existence. Motorists on the other hand, struck by his spruceness and polite demeanour, administered pleasant tonic in the form of praise. They also bestowed handsome tips. These caused him some misgiving. A gentleman could be a waiter or anything you pleased, so long as it was honest, and remain a gentleman: but could he take tips? Or rather, having taken tips, was it consonant with his gentility to retain them? Would it not be nobler to hand them over to Baptiste or Euphémie? Bigourdin, appealed to, decided that it would be magnificent but would inevitably disorganise these excellent domestics. Martin suggested the _Assistance Publique_ or the church poor-box. “I thought,” said Bigourdin, “you became a waiter in order to earn your living?” “That is so,” replied Martin. “Then,” said Bigourdin, “earn it like a waiter. Suppose I were the manager of a Grand Hotel and gave you nothing at all—as it is your salary is not that of a prince—how would you live? You are a servant of the public. The public pays you for your services. Why should you be too proud to accept payment?” “But a tip’s a tip,” Martin objected. “It is good money,” said Bigourdin. “Keep your fine five-franc pieces in your pocket and _elles feront des petits_, and in course of time you will build with them an hotel on the Côte d’Azur.”