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Updated: June 23, 2025
"The Wistaria is very popular with Southerners," she explained, "They make their money in cotton and blow it in New York. But now they can't sell their cotton, and so they have no money, and so they can't come to New York. And the hotel is run at a loss, and the proprietor discharged me and the other girl, and the bellboys are tending the switchboard. I've been a month trying to get work.
Alas, it is true: after all, I am really back again in New York. My rooms are littered with battered bags and down-at-the-heel walking sticks and still-damp steamer rugs, lying where they dropped from the hands of maudlin bellboys. My trunks are creaking their way down the hall, urged on by a perspiring, muttering porter.
Regis the faces of the clerks and the clocks gave token that much money changed hands while it was building. "In the lobby the furniture was covered with men about town, who sat around with a checkbook in each hand and made faces at the cash registers. "There are more bellboys than bedrooms in the hotel. They use them for change.
The lackadaisical young man consulted the register with a disparaging eye. "Not staying here," Marjorie understood him to remark. "Oh, it doesn't matter but about the rooms?" "Front!" drawled the young man, and several blue-clad bellboys ceased from lolling on a bench and approached the desk.
In the lobby the furniture was covered with men about town, who sat around with a checkbook in each hand and made faces at the cash register. There are more bellboys than bedrooms in the hotel. They use them for change. Every time you give the cashier $15 he hands you back $1.50 and six bellboys.
It was as large as a freight car; and was entirely surrounded by taxi-starters, bellboys, and nurse-maids. The chauffeur, and a deputy chauffeur, in a green livery with patent-leather leggings, were frowning upon the mob. They possessed the hauteur of ambulance surgeons. I returned to my chair, and then rose hastily to ask if I could not offer Mr. Farrell some refreshment. "Mebbe later," he said.
That was silly, just an emotional reaction; nevertheless, the impulse was real and caused him to yearn poignantly for human comfort. He thought of Ma Briskow, finally. She was human; she had a heart. And Dallas was a sort of homey place; anyhow, the bellboys at the Ajax knew and liked him. That was probably because he had tipped them handsomely, but what of that?
There are detectives among the chambermaids and bellboys in the hotels, and also among the guests; there are detectives on the passenger lists and in the cardrooms of the Atlantic liners; the colored porter on the private car, the butler at your friend's house, the chorus girl on Broadway, the clerk in the law office, the employee in the commercial agency, may all be drawing pay in the interest of some one else, who may be either a transportation company, a stock-broker, a rival financier, a yellow newspaper, an injured or even an erring wife, a grievance committee, or a competing concern; and the duties of these persons may and will range from the theft of mailing lists, books, papers, and private letters, up to genuine detective work requiring some real ability.
He tried to get a personal note into his benefactions by tipping bellboys and waiters $10 and $20 bills. He got well snickered at and derided for that by the minions who accept with respect gratuities commensurate to the service performed. He sought out an ambitious and talented but poor young woman, and bought for her the star part in a new comedy.
Despite the pain, the drowsiness was getting the better of him. He felt himself sinking through space, away from the world, from himself, and, worst of all, from the tender, reassuring voice that kept whispering words of comfort in his ear. From time to time he was aware of bellboys coming and going, and of apparently futile inquiries for Judson, for the doctor, for Mrs. Weston, for the captain.
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