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 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 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, 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.
[Illustration: "If it were possible to sweep a room clean with a
welcoming wave of the hand--"]
I do not know how many thousand library 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 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-a-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-a-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_."
"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!_"
[Illustration: "Cannot sleep comfortably between the sheets of William
James's pragmatic philosophy, dry as they are."]
And all of this was on the American plan, at the 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 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 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 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, 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 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
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 note addressed to "Mr. John Henry Banks," neatly typewritten, and
reading as follows:
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.
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 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 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 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 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 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_.'"
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--"
"_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 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 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.