No traveller after a night's lodging and breakfast, will mistake or confound the prerogatives or perquisites of these officials.

If he is an American, and it be his first experience of the regime, he will be surprised and puzzled at the imperium in imperio which his bill, presented to him on a tea-tray, seems to represent.

In no other business transaction of his life did he ever see the like.

It goes far beyond anything in the line of limited partnership he ever saw.

There is only one partial parallel that approaches it; and this comes to his mind as he reads the several items on his bill.
When made out and interpreted, it comes to this: the proprietor, the waiter, chambermaid, and boots are independent parties, who get up a night's lodging and two or three meals for you on the same footing as four independent underwriters would take proportionate risks at Lloyd's in some ship at sea.