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"It is a matter of absolutely no consequence. But you see, you never quite understand, my dear friend, that Lacville is a queer place, and that here, at any rate, the hotel-keepers are rather afraid of the police. I was even glad that the Commissioner did not ask to look over your boxes, and did not exact a passport from you!"
The man pushed both his hands into the pockets of his pantaloons, and stood for a minute staring at the boy, in feigned astonishment. "Why, my little innocent!" he exclaimed, "what do ye take me for; a reg'lar home for the friendless? No, I ain't in the charitable business jist now. By the way, did ye know that the law don't allow hotel-keepers to let boys stay in the bar-room?
Some people especially the hotel-keepers and those who depended on the tourist travel were for law and order; but others said that old Chris Ford had got no more than he deserved. That was the way they used to talk. Mr. Wayne was on the side of law and order, too naturally till the trial came on; and then he began " "I know all about that. Go on." "My own sympathy was with the man in prison.
Coney Island is declared to have been used by a band of pirates as the first national sand bank, and, as these rascals were caught and swung off with short shrift, they do say that the plunder is still to be had by the man who finds it. But the hotel-keepers and three-card-monte men are not waiting for that discovery to grow rich.
The hotel-keepers thought I was the American tourist overtaken by that final madness they had always anticipated. When the fortnight finished I looked back upon an eternity in purgatory. I surrendered; at least he loved me in his way. He had never ceased to urge our marriage. Who could say that I might not be fascinating enough to hold him?
For though he is a wicked gambling prince, Lenoir, he is beloved in all these regions; his establishment gives life to the town, to the lodging-house and hotel-keepers, to the milliners and hackney-coachmen, to the letters of horse-flesh, to the huntsmen and gardes-de-chasse; to all these honest fiddlers and trumpeters who play so delectably.
The hotel-keepers were gloomy at the prospect of losing their Southern patronage, and half feared they would be obliged to close their establishments. There were but few visitors, and even these were not of the class which scatters its money profusely.
Hotel-keepers, aware of this idiosyncrasy on the part of distinguished guests, arranged their scale of charges accordingly; they made the prices so high that the honest paid for the dishonest, as with English tailors. The other tradespeople of the place the smiling confectioner, the simple-minded bootmaker and good-natured stationer, the ever-polite hosier they all worked on the same principle.
The last statement appeared to be made with that breadth of veracity which is the special privilege of hotel-keepers all the world over; for the abbe was asleep when Lory entered his apartment. He awoke, however, with a characteristic haste, and his first conscious movement was suggestive of a readiness to defend himself against attack. "Ah!" he cried, with a laugh, "it is you. You see me asleep."
The hotel-keepers complained; the dealers in religious fancy articles did not take half the amount they ought to have realised; and, finally, the new town monopolised both the pilgrims and the cash; there was now no possibility for anyone but the keepers of the lodging-houses, hotels, and shops open in the neighbourhood of the Grotto to make any money whatever.
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