Englishman
got his shaving water in a pewter ewer, and he still gets it so.
It is one of the things guaranteed him under Magna Charta and he
demands it as a right; but I, being but a benighted foreigner,
left mine in the pitcher, and that evening the maid checked me up.
"You didn't use the shaving water I brought you to-day, sir!" she
said. "It was still in the jug when I came in to tidy up, sir."
Her tone was grieved; so, after that, to spare her feelings, I
used to pour it down the sink. But if I were doing the trip over
again I would drink it for breakfast instead of the coffee the
waiter brought me - the shaving water being warmish and containing,
so far as I could tell, no deleterious substances. And if the
bathroom were occupied at the time I would shave myself with the
coffee. I judge it might work up into a thick and durable lather.
It is certainly not adapted for drinking purposes.
The English, as a race, excel at making tea and at drinking it
after it is made; but among them coffee is still a mysterious and
murky compound full of strange by-products. By first weakening
it and wearing it down with warm milk one may imbibe it; but it
is not to be reckoned among the pleasures of life. It is a solemn
and a painful duty.
On the second morning I was splashing in my tub, gratifying that
amphibious instinct which has come down to us from the dim
evolutionary time when we were paleozoic polliwogs, when I made
the discovery that there were no towels in the bathroom. I glanced
about keenly, seeking for help and guidance in such an emergency.
Set in the wall directly above the rim of the tub was a brass
plate containing two pushbuttons. One button, the uppermost one,
was labeled Waiter - the other was labeled Maid.
This was disconcerting. Even in so short a stay under the roof
of an English hotel I had learned that at this 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.
