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From Pillar to Post

[196] <h2>XI</h2> <h3>MINE HOST</h3> Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn. So wrote William Shenstone, a minor poet of England in those brilliant days that produced Addison, and Swift, and Richard Steele, and our own great philosopher and humorist Benjamin Franklin. I used formerly to sympathize deeply with the poet's sentiment, so charmingly expressed, and in a certain way I do so still; but in the last decade, involving so much wandering, and so many inns of varied degrees of excellence, I have found that my sympathy with Shenstone's thought has undergone considerable modification. I should indeed sigh to think that I had found my warmest welcome at an inn; but I should hesitate to indorse any sentiment that would seem to underestimate the value of the whole-souled, genial[197] character of Mine Host, as I have encountered him in all parts of the United States. While I cannot truthfully say that I think we Americans have a genius for hotel management, such as our cousins of Switzerland, for instance, appear to have, I can at least say that I believe we have a natural aptitude for a peculiarly delightful kind of spontaneous hospitality, of which I have been for years the grateful beneficiary. If a hotel were a thing of the spirit solely, I should say that the hostelries of the United States, taking them by and large, approximate perfection; but unfortunately one cannot impart tenderness to a steak with cordial smiles, freshness to an egg with a twinkling eye, or the essential properties of coffee to a boiled bean with a pleasant word; and if in the South and Middle West it were possible to sweep a room clean with a welcoming wave of the hand, and to set a mobilized entomology in full retreat with the fervor of an advance in friendliness, I should not think so often, perhaps, upon the possible duties of local Boards of Health in respect to the American hotel situation. I hasten to add, however, that this situation, hopeless as it at times appears to be, brings forcibly[198] to my mind that ancient chestnut set forth in the sign in the Far Western church— DON'T SHOOT THE ORGANIST: HE IS DOING THE BEST HE CAN— for I verily believe that in nine cases out of ten the landlords of the nation are in point of fact doing the "best they can," and in many instances in the face of heart-breaking discouragement. They are themselves quite aware of their deficiencies, as was once clearly established in the inscription I saw in front of an Oklahoma caravansary as I passed through on the Katy-Flyer, to the following effect: THE SALT AND TOOTHPICKS SERVED AT THE SAINT JAMES ARE AS GOOD AS THOSE AT ANY HOTEL IN AMERICA Our American communities, unfortunately, have not yet awakened to the economic fact that a good hotel is about as valuable an asset as a town can have. An enterprise that might very properly, and for the general good, be subsidized by the Board of Trade, or even by the town itself, is left to private initiative; usually with barren, if not bankrupting, results. New England is slowly awakening to this need,[199] and within the last few years a number of fine hostelries have been established, with the backing of real civic interest, and under trained management; but very few of even the most progressive Western and Southern Communities seem as yet to have taken so vital a matter into consideration. They have good will and courtesy enough among them to run a thousand highly acceptable caravansaries, and I have sometimes wished that some of their individual qualities might in some way be engrafted upon our more sumptuous Eastern hotels, where one is able to get anything one is willing to pay for, except the feeling that somebody somewhere in the hotel is glad he came. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/gs21.jpg" width-obs="302" height-obs="500" alt=""If it were possible to sweep a room clean with a welcoming wave of the hand—"" title="" /> "If it were possible to sweep a room clean with a welcoming wave of the hand—"</div> I do not know how many thousand library[200] buildings our great Ironmaster has caused to be built in this country—and we who write books have cause to be grateful to him for having provided such rarely beautiful mausoleums for the final interment of our cherished productions—but I have often wished that his generous pursestrings had been loosened on behalf of hospitality, rather than exclusively for the perpetuation of current fiction and books of reference that nobody ever uses. Before the trusts are finally curbed I hope that one or two more swollen fortunes may be produced, and that the owners thereof may be inspired to carry the light of living into communities in need of something of the sort, by building hotels for them, in which clean rooms suitably aired, and good food properly cooked, may be provided for those who have to travel, and are so constituted that they cannot eat poetry, nor sleep comfortably between the sheets of the lamented William James's incursions into pragmatic philosophy, dry as they unquestionably are. How next to impossible it is for our good landlords in certain sections of the land to conduct their business profitably was once brought to my attention by a little incident in a town not many[201] leagues from Atlanta, Georgia. I found myself seated one evening at table opposite a traveling man of most marvelous gastronomic fortitude. For his supper he ordered cereal and cream, two fried eggs "done on both sides," some bacon, "a little of that steak," German fried potatoes, some baked beans, a bit of kippered herring, milk toast, preserved peaches, hot biscuit, sponge cake, and a cup of coffee. After the commissariat had responded faithfully, and the table had been duly decorated with the serried ranks of "bird-bath" dishes containing the bulk of the enumerated edibles, a third party arrived, and an old friendship between himself and my vis-à-vis was renewed. "Well, Tommy, old man, it's ninety-seven moons since I saw you last! How's things?" said the newcomer. "Oh—pretty good," said my vis-à-vis wearily. "Business is good enough; but I ain't feelin' very well myself." "What's the trouble—caught cold?" asked the newcomer. "No," said the other. "I'm just feelin' sort o' mean—my stummick don't seem just right. I guess I been workin' too hard."[202] "You'd ought to eat milk toast," said the new arrival. "Yes," said Tommy. "I've ordered some." At this point the waitress came up for the newcomer's order. "I'm too tired to order, Jennie," said he. "Just you bring me the same as he has, and see that the buckwheats are hot." "Gee! Buckwheats!" cried Tommy. "I didn't know there was buckwheats—bring me a stack of 'em too, Jennie!" <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/gs22.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="372" alt=""Cannot sleep comfortably between the sheets of William James's pragmatic philosophy, dry as they are."" title="" /> "Cannot sleep comfortably between the sheets of William James's pragmatic philosophy, dry as they are."</div> And all of this was on the American plan, at the[203] rate of two dollars for three meals and a night's lodging! I am afraid my friend of the uncertain digestive organs belonged to the same gastronomic school as a famous war correspondent I met at my club many years ago. He was an Englishman, and was delightfully enthusiastic about everything he had found in America except our hotels. "And even they wouldn't be so bad," said he, "if it wasn't for that beastly American plan upon which they're run. Why, out in San Francisco I actually had to eat and eat and eat until I was positively ill, to get ahead of the game!" Traveling Americans are inclined to criticize the hotels of foreign countries for their lack of bathroom facilities, and I recall an occasion in Rome some years ago when I found the act of taking a dip in the one bathroom the hotel provided almost as formal a function as a presentation at the Vatican, involving a series of escorts from my room to the dark little hole on an upper floor where the tub was kept, far greater in number than those involved in my progress from the American college to the papal presence. Indeed, the only occasion I can recall when in a foreign country I was able to get a bath without[204] encountering all sorts of obstacles was also in Rome, four years ago, when I endeavored to order a bottle of mineral water in my choicest Italian, and got a bath instead, the whiskered male chambermaid of whom I ordered it having little familiarity with his own tongue as "she was spoke" by an American. But precisely similar conditions exist in this country. An eminent singer in one of his famous poems lamented the difficulty of getting the Time, the Place, and the Girl together; but if he had ever gone on the Chautauqua circuit in this land I fear he would have written also of the well nigh impossible operation of getting the Time, the Place, and the Tub together; and I may add that I wish a law might be passed requiring hotels that do provide bathing facilities to supply also at least one towel that is visible to the naked eye. The story of the man who asked an Indiana hotel clerk to "give" him "a room and a bath," to be greeted by the instant response, "We'll give you the room; but you'll have to wash yourself," contains quite as much truth as humor. I had to forego my dip in a Southern hotel on one morning because "the last feller that took a bath[205] here run off with the key to the door," and then on the following morning when the bathroom door had been forced open I found the tub constructed of tiles, with a lush growth of morning glory vines sprouting up between them. When in an Ohio hotel several years ago, having insisted upon a room with a bath, I found the latter in a dark cubbyhole whose doors and windows had evidently not been opened for months. Atmospherically speaking, the Black Hole of Calcutta was a thing of sweetness and light compared to it. Nearly suffocated, I struggled with the frosted-glass window at one side of the cell for several minutes, and finally with a supreme effort got it up: only to find that it opened on an inner corridor of the hotel. And be it recorded that the heating facilities are quite on a par with these. The heating apparatus of most hotels is either missing altogether, or terrifying in character. The latter sort is especially in evidence in the natural gas regions, where that useful commodity is used with an airy carelessness that inspires dreadful forebodings. I shall never forget my first introduction to natural gas as a heating proposition. It was in an[206] historic edifice in Ohio, which I shall not name; for it has already been sufficiently advertised by its "loving friends." Suffice it to say that by some strange oversight of Nature it still stands. To get to my room, in the first place I was compelled to rise several flights in an elevator whose lift was as uncertain as its years, and then with the aid of a hallboy to thread an intricate maze of interlocking corridors alongside of which the Dedalian Labyrinth was simplicity itself. Arrived finally in the room assigned to me, I found it dark, damp, and cold. "How about a little heat here, Son?" said I, appealing to the hallboy. "Sure!" said he. The boy faded into the gloom of the far end of the room, leaned over, and tugged away vigorously for a few moments on a screw in the baseboard, and then standing back about two feet he began to bombard the wall with lighted matches—the kind which light only on the seat of a bellboy's trousers. I shall not attempt to say how many of these he lit and threw at the wall before anything happened. It seemed to be an appalling number, and considering the manifest inflammability of the building,[207] and the height of my room from the ground, it made me very nervous. "What the dickens are you doing?" said I. But there was neither time nor need for his answer. One well projected match seemed to hit the particular bullseye he was aiming at. There came a boom and a flash, and in a second I saw a half-dozen sizable flames creeping upward from the floor to a point about breast high on the wall, where by some strange miracle the conflagration stopped. "Nacheril gas!" said the boy, with a grin, as he departed. It had been my intention to remain overnight in that city; but when I realized that that same process was probably going on in at least a dozen other apartments, above, beside, and below me, I suddenly decided to return to New York on the night train. I will take my chances on the future life; but while I live, breathe, and have my being upon this terrestrial orb I believe in getting fire risks down to their lowest reducible minimum by adopting a policy of complete avoidance. Our clever newspaper humorists have made a good deal of capital out of the haughty hotel clerk[208] with the diamond stud; but I must confess that I have never yet encountered this individual in the wide swath of my wanderings. Save in one or two places, I have found on the contrary a genial solicitude for my welfare, wholly undecorated as to shirt-front—often indeed without the shirt-front itself—which has more than offset such shortcomings as were characteristic of the inns over whose desks they presided. On one occasion in Indianapolis I encountered what seemed at first to be a heartless lack of appreciation and cordial recognition on my arrival; but it was more than compensated for in the end, and I should add was rather the result of a too high expectation on my own part than the fault of the man behind the register. I had long wished to visit Indianapolis, largely because of its national reputation as a literary center. A State that has produced so many authors of high distinction as have come out of Indiana, with her General Lew Wallace, her James Whitcomb Riley, Charles Major, Meredith Nicholson, George Ade, Booth Tarkington, and those two purveyors of wholesome fiction and good, clean humor, the McCutcheon brothers, is entitled to some of the laureled[209] interest of a literary Mecca, and I registered at the Claypool in my boldest hand, quietly and confidently expecting some immediate recognition, such as a not altogether unknown worker on the slopes of Parnassus might expect to receive on arriving at Olympus. The room clerk whisked the register round and studied the inscription for a moment. "What's that—Boggs?" he inquired. "No," said I, my crest falling a bit, "Bangs—John Ken—" "Oh," said he, bringing his hand down heavily on the bell. "Front, show this gentleman to number three hundred and nine." He tossed a key to the bellboy, which the latter caught with the dexterity of a Buck Ewing, the prize catcher in the ball games of my young manhood, and holding my diminished head as high as I could I followed him to the elevator, devoutly wishing that Riley or Ade might happen in and fall upon my neck, and show that low-browed room clerk a thing or two he wouldn't forget in a hurry. And then came a sort of amende honorable. Scarcely had I got settled in number three hundred and nine when a second bellboy arrived, bearing a[210] note addressed to "Mr. John Henry Banks," neatly typewritten, and reading as follows: <div class="blockquot">Dear Sir,—If you wish a table for the display of your samples and a plug key for the protection of the same, please apply at the office. Respectfully,                                     The Claypool. </div> It was a salutary experience, and in my subsequent visits to the Athens of America I have approached it in an appropriate spirit of humility and respect. And philosophically I have tried to comfort myself with the thought that after all it would not be very surprising if a scuttleful of coal arriving at Newcastle were to find its coming a matter of small importance to those good people who dig that useful commodity out of the bowels of the earth at the rate of ten carloads a minute. Why should a mere writer of books arriving at Indianapolis expect to create any special commotion, when it is a well known fact that you could not possibly heave a brick in any direction in that charming city without hitting an author? I think that for sheer originality in his craft, as well as for his human interest, I must award the palm among innkeepers I have met to a vigorous old fellow who either ran, or was run by, a hotel I[211] once visited in South Dakota. He was known to most people as "Conk": not because of the rather hard shell one had to penetrate to get at him, but because it was the first syllable of his last name. His hotel was a two-story brick structure, sadly in need of a Noachian Deluge for its preliminary renovation, and built upon the pleasing lines of an infant penitentiary. This illusion was faithfully carried out by the rooms within, which had many of the physical qualities of the cells of commerce. The hotel had a dining room; but Conk had given up serving meals therein, and had also as far as I could observe abandoned everything else in the way of service as well. My Muse and I arrived several hours before dawn, and after wandering hand in hand for twenty or thirty minutes along invisible highways reached the edifice. We registered, and were ushered to a pigeonhole on the second tier by a large, yellow-haired youth, who was trying to keep awake and mop up the office floor simultaneously, succeeding only indifferently in both operations. The particular cell set apart for our accommodation was lit by a half-candlepower bulb with a pronounced flicker, which shed a dim, religious[212] light upon a walled-in space about ten feet square. In this there was a double bed, a nondescript piece of furniture which suggested a collision between a washstand and a bureau, a rocking chair that refused to rock, and a cane-bottomed arrangement of perilous spindles that wouldn't do anything else. After I had disposed of our two suitcases and my typewriting machine the only solution of another difficulty that immediately arose was to leave our feet out in the hall. As soon as I noted the rather limited character of our accommodations I repaired below, to see if there was not available something a trifle more roomy: to find only the satisfaction involved in the contemplation of the tow-headed six-footer lying asleep on a bench exchanging dreamy nothings with his mop, which he held hugged tight to his breast. With persistent effort I might have awakened the mop; but the tow-headed youth was too far gone into the land of dreams to be recalled by anything short of a universal cataclysm. I therefore crept sadly up the stairs to our cell, and we reclined on the double bed until dawn, at which time the merciful providence of the half-candlepower bulb was completely revealed unto us; for if we had been[213] able to see that bed in its dim light no power on earth, not all the mobilized armies of the world could have induced us to lie down upon it. An hour later we breakfasted on ham and eggs at a stand-up all-night lunch counter which we located after much wandering, and then, returning to the hotel, Brother Conk in all his muscular majesty dawned upon the horizon of my life. I can best describe him by saying that whatever he might do in action, a camera fiend would have found in him a perfect model for a snapshot of the long-looked-for White Hope. He was huge and indescribably red. His name should have been Rufus, and the hand of Esau was a smoothly shaven thing alongside of the Conkian fist. He had a penetrating, yet rolling eye that would have subjugated a Kaiser with a single glance. He was scrutinizing his fingernails as we entered his presence, and in view of my supreme ambition to remain a hero always in the eyes of my Muse I saw her safely deposited in our hermetically sealed receiving vault above before venturing to address the gentleman. This done, I started in to pay my respects to Mine Host. "I don't suppose you could let us have a larger[214] room," said I tentatively, my words coming with a husky falter. "I dunno what room ya got," was the gruff response, one of the rolling eyes settling full upon both of mine. "We're in nun-number thirty-two," I ventured meekly. "Well, thirty-three's an inch and a half wider," said he, biting off a hang nail. "Ya can move inta that if ya wanta." It hardly seemed worth while, and considering that in respect to matters other than its size, or lack of it, we already knew the worst as to thirty-two, we left thirty-three unvisited on the principle that —makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of. There were enough wings loose in number thirty-two to enable us to fly anywhere on the face of the earth; but we decided not to avail ourselves of them. "Never mind, my dear," said I. "Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." And the Only Muse merely laughed, and with feminine exaggeration comforted me with the assurance[215] that "it might be worse." I suppose it might have been; though I don't know how. Anyhow I sat down on the rockless rocker, drew an overdraft on the bank of cheer, and proceeded to read aloud that fine story of Fiona Macleod's about the good old North Countryman who every morning walked out upon his breezy headland and "took off his hat to the beauty of the world." Later in the day the chairman of the lecture committee called to pay his respects, and in the course of our conversation I told him of my experience with Conk. "I congratulate you most heartily," said he, laughing. "You came off rather better than an exchange professor from Germany who came out here last year to give a course of lectures at our agricultural college. He asked Conk in his pleasant German way for more spacious quarters, and Conk's answer was, 'Sure I can give ya more space.' And taking the professor's suitcase in one hand, and the professor in the other, he rushed them both to the front door, threw the suitcase out into the street, and, pushing the professor gently out after it, remarked, 'There—I guess there's room, enough for ya out there.'" [216]Whether the chairman was a mind reader or not I do not know; but I do know that in response to my telepathic calls for help he turned to the Only Muse and suggested that in view of certain possibilities which might incapacitate me from filling my engagement at the lecture hall that night we had much better move over to his house, where we would find a warm welcome. "That's fine!" said I, rising with alacrity. "Just you take her over with you now, and I'll see Conk, and pay my bill, and come over as soon as I can with our luggage." The plan was promptly carried out, and after seeing the Only Muse safely on her way to other quarters I went to number thirty-two, gathered up our traps, and with trepidation in my soul approached the landlord. This time I found him sitting in the office, before the window, staring Nature out of countenance. "Well, Mr. Landlord," I said, as affably as I knew how, "I—I've come to—to settle up. It seems we were expected to stay with Dr. and Mrs. Soandso. We—er—we didn't know it when we arrived—and I—I'm sorry to leave you; but—er—but of course—" [217]"Thank God!" the landlord returned explosively, rising and seizing my hand in a viselike grip that even to remember two years later causes me anguish. "That's the first good news I've had to-day. I been running this blankety blank blank joint for seven years now, and it's cost me over thirty thousand dollars already, and every time I see a blinkety blank blank boarder come in through that front door it makes me so dashed sick that I feel like nailin' the blankety blank door up so tight old Beelzybub himself'd have to come down through the chimbley to get inside!" It was at this point that Conk and I parted company at the beginning of what I am inclined to think might have ripened into a lifelong friendship. I had got his point of view! Strange as his conception of hospitality seemed superficially to be, there was reason in him, and I began to perceive that he had some mighty good points. Frankness was one of them, and gratitude, and one of the incidents of his career as narrated to me later by one of his neighbors was convincing proof that, in sporting parlance, the old fellow was a good loser. It seems that a certain traveling man of great[218] nerve force stopped overnight some years ago with Conk, probably occupying number thirty-two. It was a fearfully hot night, and the room became unbearably stuffy. For a long time the suffering guest strove to open the window, but without results. Prayer, condemnation, muscular force, all alike were powerless to move it. Finally in desperation the unhappy visitor threw on his dressing robe, and stalked down to the office to make complaint. "It's hotter than Tophet in that room of mine," he protested, "and I've been monkeying with that dod-gasted window of yours for the last hour, and the dinged thing won't give an inch!" "Well, if ya can't move it, why in Dothan dontcha kick it out?" retorted Conk coldly. "All right, I will," said the guest, returning to the furnace above. And he did. Glass, frame, and sash were kicked with all the power of an angry man into a mass of wreckage never again to be redeemed. "Well," said the guest the following morning, as he started to leave for the station, "what's the tax? What do I owe you?" "Not a blamed cent!" gruffed Conk. "You're[219] the first son of a sea cook that's ever had the nerve to call my bluff, and by Henry you don't pay a nickel into my till except over my dead body!" If I have seemed in any wise severe in my treatment of Conk in this tribute to his memory, I am sorry. The material facts could hardly be glossed over; but as for the man himself I am truly glad to have met him. I wouldn't have missed him for a farm. He was not much of a Chesterfield; but he had his own ways, and they gave me a thrill. The joyous, almost grateful courtesy with which he put me out of his front door was a thing to remember, and I in turn am everlastingly grateful to him for letting me out on the ground floor instead of seizing me by the left leg and dragging me up through the skylight, and throwing me off the roof. He could have done it easily, and I am sure it was only the intrinsic, if considerably latent, nobility of his soul that restrained the impulse to do so that I am confident he felt. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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