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Show I'jj II EJE W,AS K E,,ort' stoul- well -foil ap- I pearing little man who looked a.1 I Kill f lle "ilsht hnve many genial I moments if ho were rubbed the (Tlffht way, but as hi .was ushered ln,to my sanctum by ny Japanese, nldc-de-J 'cmp he was unquestionably as angry 1 ' fls the proverbial hatter was mad. When he first began to. talk he sput- -;vd like a scornful lamp wick entcr- 'hyr lis "protest against an unexpected it rii'Uekney In the oil supply, and I was not nulle mire at llrst that he was not fonie kind of a new fangled human "Roman "Ro-man candle thai mirrht be expected to i ombard me wjth red. green, yellow mid blue balls at any moment. Hence I s T begRod him to be sealed I reached ut for my umbrella as a measure of I -protection. , J At the close of hi harangue-like ? reeling, which required In the neigh-; neigh-; orhood of ten minute?' for it." delivery. A asked- hint what I could do for hlin .ind to what T-owed the honor of his visit. ' Why,'1 , he roared, as he plumped I imsejf "breathlessly down in my comfortable com-fortable arm chair and gazing at me . Ilh eyes that popped out of his head . h bulgcntly ns the yolk of a poached gg from lis snow white environment, 'why, I've Just told you." "Oh, excuse me." said I. "I didn't 'understand. Were you really talking?" "Talking:" ho cried. "Of course I "is talking. What In HInghamton did sow think I was doing?" T didn't really know," 1 replied. "I 'i.ii an Impression, however, that you had n bit of fluff or a hair of some kind m your mouth and were trying to get M out without. using your finger?. Nad known you were talking I most cer-Ulnly cer-Ulnly should have followed you more ' osely. I am very fond of these miasms- word contest?' o Parker-like Silence. - He gazed at mo in a silenco which r Judge Parker would have envied, so eep it wan. for a full minute, and a I i t u. itched him I could" see that he waa j-Tiously debating in his own mind whether or not he should come down to my level of Irrelevancy, or take 'his I rr-venge upon me by going off In- a Mirge of apoplexy. Fortunately, he de-, de-, ;ded upon the former course. "I have come to you to protest against trls everlasting atufT you fellows -print bout the cxpenHiveness of our summer TotclH, their lack of real comfort, the alleged unmusical quality of our bands, nd o on. You published an Interview last week with a smug minded old wind 1 1flR named Gaboter Col. Gabsier In which he cast the same old slum on our iraft, and what I want to know la ' whether there Is any such person, what I he's Colonel of. and If after all the . whole thing wasn't faked up right here in this sanctum of yours." IV "Ah, r see," said I. "You want a rc-traction rc-traction from somebody, Is lhat it?" j "Yes, and I don't care who it's from o long as I get it," he observed an- 1 "That being the case, why don't you H1 make it yourself?" I suggested. "Of 'oure I shan't tell you anything about . 'ol. Gab9ter except that he really Is a t'olonol. He was born In Kentucky, i How could he be anything else?" "He must be a bravo chap hiding be-hind be-hind your skirls," growled my visitor. H In Defense of the Colonel. "Excuse nie, my friend," said I. "I ! do not wear skirts in summer time, myhow. Moreover, Col. Gabster Is not j - In hiding. It is I who am standing bo- tween you. If he were here I havo no - doubt he would fight you until he had ' shed the very last drop of mint Julep I In his veins. If you object to his views t give me your side of the story ami I'll print It .lust as' I printed hid." ' This statement had a cooling effect upon my visitor. J , "That's fair enough," said ho. "111 do it. And to begin with, let us take up that lime honored provuricatlon that all summer resorts suffer from mosquitoes and files. The Blue Hill l " .Mountain house, of whtch I am the pro- H ? Drletor, hasn't a single mosquito on th premises." " "That's good." said I, noting down y his statement. 1 "No, sir, not a single one. ThsyVe all maiTled," he observed. "And th'Mr wives keep 'em honni nlshta. so they n don't bother our guests. That's why I advertise 'em. The .-lomesUcated mos-h mos-h qulto is a feature of my hotel, and the guests, inKtead of finding them a nul-j nul-j :ancc, really regacd them as one of iho ' luxuries. The same thing' is true about the files. Wc are strict utilitarians up our way, and nothing comes anywhere j near us that we don't make use of. We , catch all the flies that come within a mile of the Blue Mountain house and BVj 1 play games of chance with them, which Km ovon the ministers yes, by jingo, even the clergy recommend." "Fly" Roulette. "We place a huge piece of fly paper on a table In the main office," my vlslt-or vlslt-or explained. "This is divided Into - ihirty-alx numbered sectiono,- and on ' Hlny duys, when there Is nothing else . 7C X 7 W nw ' 41, xT 1-Jl ' : i ii9 i rl to do, we put the numbers up at public auction. The money thus obtained is put into a pool. Ther. we loosen the Hies that have been c.iugh!: the day bo-fore, bo-fore, and when night comes we count the bluebottles' or other that have alighted and been caught on the sticky squares of the fly p.ipr-r. The individual individ-ual holding, the number of iho most widely populated square wins the pool." "That's a sort of insect roulette, is It not?" I asked. "Well yes" "And how. then, do the ciergy happen hap-pen to approve It?" I -lemanded. "Because when they win they can devote de-vote the proceeds to charity," explained ex-plained my guest. "Moreover, it is a square game. With patience you can teach a fly most anything, but he'll play straight always, .o there's none of your bunko business about It." "Col. Gabster will bo delighted to hear about It," said I, enthuslaptlcally, "and no doubt will credit you with all that Is your due on tnat score. How about the high tariff schedule for the bathtub? Can you explain that?" "Certainly. I can' said' the visitor. "The charge that is brought on the bathtub count Is- utterly unjust when you consider the laws of supply and demand de-mand My hotel accommodates 300 guestn, and we have only ten tubs In the house. If we didn't put a high price on 'the bathing privilege, everybody In the house would want to use them between be-tween 7 and 0 In the morning and every morning. It's easy to figure out what that would) mean. Ten tubs In use for 120 minutes each would mean 1200 minutes min-utes of bathing c-vcrji dy to be divided up among 300 people, or four mlnutea apiece. What kind of a riot do you sup-poi?e sup-poi?e I'd be mixed up in If I tried any such scheme as that?" Problem of Tubs. "You might extend the bathing hours through the dft3" I suggested, "and let each guest hav an hour." "Very well," said he. "Where does that leave U3? Ten tubs for CuO people mean thirty persons to the tub. Working Work-ing night and day throughout the reason, rea-son, an long as our days ore only twenty-four hours long, you'd find yourself with six complaints per tub per diem or sixty kickers a day, the equivalent of 420 per week. In a season of ten weeks thaf.'i 4200 complaints on the bathtub account alone. No, plr; It can't be done. The only thing- to do i9 to put such a figure on the bathing privileges that people will have to be moderate or go broke." It was clear that I was in the presence of an expert hotel accountant, and as against his figures I found myself powerless to advance any adequate arguments ar-guments in favor of the free and unlimited unlim-ited coinage of bathtubs In summer hotels-. "Now, there's another count that you fellows are always urging in your indictment in-dictment of us hotel men," continued-my continued-my protesting friend, "and that Is that we don't pay wages to our bellboya, baggage smashers and waiters, so that you visitors have to give them tips. Well, saippo&e wc look at the other side of that matter. Suppose wo don't pay 'em wages?. We give 'em board; and lodging, don't we?" "I understand that you do," said I, meekly. "Well, our lowest i-ates for board and lodging are ?14 a week, and tiere isn't a bellboy In our whole place that doesn't eat and sleep that value out of our plant three times over. In a month of four weeks that amounts to SEC, which, I think, la pretty good pay, and' all that time that chap is waiting on you, not on me. He, wears out my stair carpets-can-ylng my pitchers of ice water up to your room for vou to drink. I'm tho fellow that payy for all that, and I'm glad to do it, but I don't see where your complaint comew In, because I don't provide pro-vide him with a college education on the side. What's more, none of you ever look Into the real value of that service. "I had a bellboy in my pluce once who spent eight hours a day fronting arounU for the guests, and now he's a lawyer up In Boston who charges 350 an hour Just for talking to you. There 1 had a ?400 a day man to look after my gucitn' comfort,' but nobody gives me any credit for that only complaints, because be-cause some of you' had to give him a quarter occasionally In order to catch . his eye. I tell you, we're a much-abused class." Charges Not Steep. "DonH you think your charges? are ti little steep?" I asked. "You ?7 a day. fellows" , "Oh, tut, with your 37 a day talk!" cried the visitor. "What do you want us to do? Pay you for visiting us? In your buElncss- you've got a year to make your profits in. We've got three months .at most: In other - words, where vou .have 365 days of the year to earn- your living we've got ninety. Why in thunder thun-der shouldn't we charge 57 a day? Seven dollars a day for ninety days Is letTS than a f 1.75 per dletn for the year. "And what do you get for it? A J Ox 12 room all to yourself, with a mountain view from the front window, three meals a day, and enough food at any one of 'em to run an orphan asylum a week; all the Ice water you choose to ring for; a band of four pieces, not including in-cluding the piano; fresh milk from New-York New-York every Saturday; the best eggs Fulton Ful-ton market affords; a divinity student to do the head wailing; Harvard and Bowdoin undergraduates to wait on you at table, and a hop every other week. Two moonlight nights guaranteed' every month, and a dozen nice girls open to a limited number of summer engagements that give you all the delights and none of tho responsibilities of the real thing and for a paltry $1.75. a day. rah! You hotel wugmumps are Avorse than, the end seat ham with your preposterous demands." i And T could not do otherwise than ngrpc with the poor chap. I had never reduced the thing to figures as he had. and I found this ?J 75 a day proposition absolutely convincing, and I told him I p-x He exproswd much satisfaction as &0DLETXE 1 j)&& ne rose to depart with my promise to lay his side of the question before the public "It's very square of you," he said as I shook him by ihc- hand. "and. by the "nay," he added, "to show my gratitude If you ever come up to my place, I won't charge you a cent for. the air or the Alow. Ill refund all your tips to the help up to 52 50: I'll give you the pret-tlest pret-tlest little room up in the cupola all to yourself, and 1$. you use the bathtub free of charge whenever you wish to" "Vou are exceedingly good'." I began. "For JC.50 a day instead' of ?7." he finished, fin-ished, as he vanished lln-ough the door. It was a real delight to find In this selfish world' one man at least who was not ashamed to show his gratitude for favom received, anil as soon ns I can borrow tho monoy I am going up to npond a couple of hours at his plar'o. i IN THE - ' |
