DISTRESSING SCENE
“I say, laddie!” said Archie.
“Sir?” the desk-clerk alertly. All the of the Hotel Cosmopolis were alert. It was one of the on which Mr. Daniel Brewster, the proprietor, insisted. And as he was always about the of the hotel a personal on affairs, it was safe to relax.
“I want to see the manager.”
“Is there anything I do, sir?”
Archie looked at him doubtfully.
“Well, as a of fact, my dear old desk-clerk,” he said, “I want to up a row, and it to you into it. Why you, I to say? The I want on a is the manager.”
At this point a massive, grey-haired man, who had been close by, on the with an air of severity, as if it to start anything, joined in the conversation.
“I am the manager,” he said.
His was cold and hostile. Others, it to say, might like Archie Moffam, but not he. Daniel Brewster was for combat. What he had had him to the of his being. The Hotel Cosmopolis was his own private, personal property, and the thing to him in the world, after his Lucille. He himself on the that his hotel was not like other New York hotels, which were by and and of directors, and the touch which the Cosmopolis what it was. At other wrong, and clients complained. At the Cosmopolis wrong, he was on the spot to see that they didn’t, and as a result clients complained. Yet here was this long, thin, string-bean of an Englishman actually and his very eyes.
“What is your complaint?” he frigidly.
Archie himself to the top of Mr. Brewster’s coat, and was by an of the other’s body.
“Listen, old thing! I came over to this country to nose about in search of a job, there doesn’t what you might call a for my services in England. Directly I was demobbed, the family started talking about the Land of Opportunity and me on to a liner. The idea was that I might of something in America—”
He got of Mr. Brewster’s coat-button, and was again off.
“Between ourselves, I’ve done anything much in England, and I the family were a fed. At any rate, they sent me over here—”
Mr. Brewster himself for the third time.
“I would to the of your life,” he said coldly, “and be what is your against the Hotel Cosmopolis.”
“Of course, yes. The old hotel. I’m to that. Well, it was like this. A on the told me that this was the best place to stop at in New York—”
“He was right,” said Mr. Brewster.
“Was he, by Jove! Well, all I can say, then, is that the other New York must be mouldy, if this is the best of the lot! I took a room here last night,” said Archie with self-pity, “and there was a which drip-drip-drip all night and me awake.”
Mr. Brewster’s deepened. He that a had been in his armour. Not the most hotel-proprietor can keep an on every in his establishment.
“Drip-drip-drip!” Archie firmly. “And I put my the door when I to bed, and this they hadn’t been touched. I give you my word! Not touched.”
“Naturally,” said Mr. Brewster. “My employés are honest.”
“But I wanted them cleaned, it!”
“There is a shoe-shining in the basement. At the Cosmopolis shoes left doors are not cleaned.”
“Then I think the Cosmopolis is a hotel!”
Mr. Brewster’s quivered. The had been offered. Question the of Mr. Brewster’s parentage, Mr. Brewster and walk on his with shoes, and you did not close all to a peaceful settlement. But make a like that about his hotel, and was definitely declared.
“In that case,” he said, stiffening, “I must ask you to give up your room.”
“I’m going to give it up! I wouldn’t in the place another minute.”
Mr. Brewster walked away, and Archie to the cashier’s to his bill. It had been his in any case, though for purposes he it from his adversary, to the hotel that morning. One of the of which he had over from England had resulted in an from a Mrs. Tuyl to her house-party at Miami, and he had to go there at once.
“Well,” Archie, on his way to the station, “one thing’s certain. I’ll set in that place again!”
But nothing in this world is certain.
