The Poinciana station's a couple hundred yards from one end o' the
hotel, and that means it's close to five miles from the clerk's desk. By
the time we'd registered and been gave our key and marathoned another
five miles or so to where our room was located at, I was about ready for
the inquest. But the Missus was full o' pep and wild to get down to
breakfast and look over our stable mates. She says we would eat without
changin' our clo'es; people'd forgive us for not dressin' up on account
o' just gettin' there. W'ile she was lookin' out the window at the royal
palms and buzzards, I moseyed round the room inspectin' where the
different doors led to. Pretty near the first one I opened went into a
private bath.
"Here," I says; "they've give us the wrong room."
Then my wife seen it and begin to squeal.
"Goody!" she says. "We've got a bath! We've got a bath!"
"But," says I, "they promised we wouldn't have none. It must be a
mistake."
"Never you mind about a mistake," she says. "This is our room and they
can't chase us out of it."
"We'll chase ourself out," says I. "Rooms with a bath is fifteen and
sixteen dollars and up. Rooms without no bath is bad enough."
"We'll keep this room or I won't stay here," she says.
"All right, you win," I says; but I didn't mean it.
I made her set in the lobby down-stairs w'ile I went to the clerk
pretendin' that I had to see about our trunk.
"Say," I says to him, "you've made a bad mistake. You told your man in
Chicago that we couldn't have no room with a bath, and now you've give
us one."
"You're lucky," he says. "A party who had a bath ordered for these two
weeks canceled their reservation and now you've got it."
"Lucky, am I?" I says. "And how much is the luck goin' to cost me?"
"It'll be seventeen dollars per day for that room," he says, and turned
away to hide a blush.