Hour the waiter
would be hastening from room to room, ministering to Englishmen
engaged in gumming their vital organs into an impenetrable mass
with the national dish of marmalade; and that the maid would also
be busy carrying shaving water to people who did not need it.
Besides, of all the classes I distinctly do not require when I am
bathing, one is waiters and the other is maids. For some minutes
I considered the situation, without making any headway toward a
suitable solution of it; meantime I was getting chilled. So I
dried myself - sketchily - with a toothbrush and the edge of the
window-shade; then I dressed, and in a still somewhat moist state
I went down to interview the management about it. 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.
I was raised differently from that. With me, bathing has ever
been a solitary pleasure. This may denote selfishness on my part;
but such is my nature and I cannot alter it. All my folks feel
about it as I do. We are a very peculiar family that way. When
bathing we do not invite an audience. Nor do I want one. A crowd
would only embarrass me. I merely desire a little privacy and,
here and there, a towel."
"Ah, yes! Quite so, sir," he said; "but you do not understand me.
As I said before, you ring for the waiter or the maid. When one
of them comes you tell them to send you the manservant on your
floor; and when he comes you tell him you require towels, and he
goes to the linen cupboard and gets them and fetches them to you,
sir. It's very simple, sir."
"But why," I persisted, "why do this thing by a relay system? I
don't want any famishing gentleman in this place to go practically
unmarmaladed at breakfast because I am using the waiter to conduct
preliminary negotiations with a third party in regard to a bathtowel."
"But it is so very simple, sir," he repeated patiently. "You ring
for the waiter or the ma - "
I checked him with a gesture. I felt that I knew what he meant
to say; I also felt that if any word of mine might serve to put
this establishment on an easy-running basis they could have it and
welcome.
"Listen!" I said. "You will kindly pardon the ignorance of a poor,
red, partly damp American who has shed his eagle feathers but still
has his native curiosity with him! Why not put a third button in
that bathroom labeled Manservant or Valet or Towel Boy, or something
of that general nature? And then when a sufferer wanted towels,
and wanted 'em quick, he could get them without blocking the wheels
of progress and industry. We may still be shooting Mohawk Indians
and the American bison in the streets of Buffalo, New York; and
we may still be saying: 'By Geehosaphat, I swan to calculate!
- aanyway, I note that we still say that in all your leading comic
papers; but when a man in my land goes a-toweling, he goes a-toweling
- and that is all there is to it, positively! In our secret lodges
it may happen that the worshipful master calls the august swordbearer
to him and bids him communicate with the grand outer guardian and
see whether the candidate is suitably attired for admission; but
in ordinary life we cut out the middleman wherever possible. Do
you get my drift?"
"Oh, yes, sir," he said; "but I fear you do not understand me.
As I told you, it's very simple - so very simple, sir. We've never
found it necessary to make a change. You ring for the waiter or
for the maid, and you tell them to tell the manservant - "
"All right," I said, breaking in. I could see that his arguments
were of the circular variety that always came back to the starting
point. "But, as a favor to me, would you kindly ask the proprietor
to request the head cook to communicate with the carriage starter
and have him inform the waiter that when in future I ring the
bathroom bell in a given manner - to wit:
