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His heart still ached, but he felt equal to going to London and seeing his father, which, of course, he ought to have done immediately upon his arrival in England. He rose from his bench, and, going back to the hotel to enquire about trains, observed a familiar figure in the lobby. Eustace Hignett was leaning over the counter, in conversation with the desk-clerk. "Hullo, Eustace!" said Sam.
Those who are educated understand that by the "inside" of a hotel is meant everything except the four outer walls of it the fittings, the furniture, the bar, Billy the desk-clerk, the three dining-room girls, and above all the license granted by King Edward VII., and ratified further by King George, for the sale of intoxicating liquors. Till then the Royal had been a mere nothing.
Brewster stood in one spot and just looked thoughtful; but now and again he would wander to the marble slab behind which he kept the desk-clerk and run his eye over the register, to see who had booked rooms like a child examining the stocking on Christmas morning to ascertain what Santa Claus had brought him. As a rule, Mr.
"I say, laddie!" said Archie. "Sir?" replied the desk-clerk alertly. All the employes of the Hotel Cosmopolis were alert. It was one of the things on which Mr. Daniel Brewster, the proprietor, insisted. And as he was always wandering about the lobby of the hotel keeping a personal eye on affairs, it was never safe to relax. "I want to see the manager." "Is there anything I could do, sir?"
It came from the desk-clerk of the eating place. "That's me," exclaimed Curlie, jumping up. "Telephone." "All right. Be back in a minute, Joe." Curlie was away to answer the call. "'Lo. That you, Curlie?" came through the receiver. "This is Coles Masters. Got a bad case extra bad. Can't understand it. Fellow's sending 600 meter waves, with enough power to cross the Atlantic."
"But the desk-clerk said that he had asked you if it would be quite satisfactory to you giving it up to me, and you said yes. I come here every summer, when I'm not working, and I always have this room." "By Jove! I remember now. The chappie did say something to me about the room, but I was thinking of something else and it rather went over the top. So that's what he was talking about, was it?"
Archie looked at him doubtfully. "Well, as a matter of fact, my dear old desk-clerk," he said, "I want to kick up a fearful row, and it hardly seems fair to lug you into it. Why you, I mean to say? The blighter whose head I want on a charger is the bally manager."
"A-ha!" said I to myself, "I've nailed you, my friend. You're a desk-clerk, and you write all day long, standing at a desk. The worn top button rubs against your desk as you stand, which it would not do were you seated." With a pardonable curiosity to learn if I were right, I opened conversation with the young man.
And for light meals they want a Caff, a real French Caff, and for folks that come in late another place that they call a Girl Room that don't shut up at all. If I go to the city that's the kind of place I mean to run. What's yours, Gol? It's on the house?" And it was just at the moment when Mr. Smith said this that Billy, the desk-clerk, entered the room with the telegram in his hand.
In the end he fought his way out through more women than he had seen together in all his life with a box of silk hose in appallingly vivid colors and a beaded bag which, he had it on the saleslady's honor, was "all the rage." Bruce took the yellow envelope which the desk-clerk handed him and looked at it with a feeling of dread.
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