I first visited
the information desk and told the youth in charge there I wished
to converse with some one in authority on the subject of towels.
After gazing at me a spell in a puzzled manner he directed me to
go across the lobby to the cashier's department. Here I found a
gentleman of truly regal aspect. His tie was a perfect dream of
a tie, and he wore a frock coat so slim and long and black it made
him look as though he were climbing out of a smokestack. Presenting
the case as though it were a supposititious one purely, I said to
him:
"Presuming now that one of your guests is in a bathtub and finds
he has forgotten to lay in any towels beforehand--such a thing
might possibly occur, you know--how does he go about summoning the
man-servant or the valet with a view to getting some?"
"Oh, sir," he replied, "that's very simple. You noticed two
pushbuttons in your bathroom, didn't you?"
"I did," I said, "and that's just the difficulty. One of them is
for the maid and the other is for the waiter."
"Quite so, sir," he said, "quite so. Very well, then, sir: You
ring for the waiter or the maid--or, if you should charnce to be
in a hurry, for both of them; because, you see, one of them might
charnce to be en--"
"One moment," I said. "Let me make my position clear in this
matter: This Lady Susanna--I do not know her last name, but you
will doubtless recall the person I mean, because I saw several
pictures of her yesterday in your national art gallery--this Lady
Susanna may have enjoyed taking a bath with a lot of snoopy old
elders lurking round in the background; but I am not so constituted.
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