Proprietor Roller-Towel House.
Here we have a man with a quiet, gentlemanly way, and yet withal a cool,
level head, a man who knows when he needs more room and how best to go
to work to remedy that defect. Mr. Towel sees that another row of
sleeping rooms, cut low in the ceiling, is actually needed. In fancy he
already sees these rooms added to his house. Each has a strip of hemp
carpet in front of the bed and a cute little green shade over the
window, a shade that falls down when we try to adjust it, filling the
room with Kansas dust. In his dreams he sees each room fitted out with
one of those smooth, deceptive beds that are all right until we begin to
use them for sleeping purposes, a bed that the tall man lies diagonally
across and groans through the livelong night.
Mr. Towel has made a rapid calculation on the buttered side of a menu,
and ascertained that if one-half the traveling men in the United States
would kindly advance $5, to be refunded in case they did not decide to
make a tour to the Roller Towel House, and to be taken out of the bill
in case they did, the amount so received would not only add a row of
compressed hot-air bedrooms, with flexible soap and a delirious-looking
glass, but also insure an electric button, which may or may not connect
with the office, and over which said button the following epitaph could
be erected:
One Ring for Bell Boy.
Two Rings for Porter.
Three Rings for Ice Water.
Four Rings for Rough on Rats.
Five Rings for Borrowed Money.
Six Rings for Fire.
Seven Rings for Hook and Ladder Company.
In fact, a man could have rings on his fingers and bell-boys on his toes
all the time if he wanted to do so.
And yet there will be traveling-men who will receive this kind circular
and still hang back. Constant contact with a cold, cruel world has made
them cynical, and they will hesitate even after Mr. Towel has said that
he will improve his house with the money, and even after he has assured
us that we need not visit Kansas at all if we will advance the money.
This shows that he is not altogether a heartless man. Mr. Towel may be
poor, but he is not without consideration for the feelings of people who
loan him money.
For my own part I fully believe that Mr. Towel would be willing to fit
up his house and put matches in each room if traveling-men throughout
the country would respond to this call for assistance.
But the trouble is that the traveling public expect a landlord to take
all the risks and advance all the money. This makes the matter of hotel
keeping a hazardous one. Mr. Towel asks the guests to become an
interested party. Not that he in so many words agrees to divide the
profits proportionately at the end of the year with the stockholders,
but he is willing to make his hotel larger, and if food does not come up
as fast as it goes down--in price, I mean--he will try to make all his
guests feel perfectly comfortable while in his house.
Under favorable circumstances the Roller-Towel House would no doubt be
thoroughly refitted and refurnished throughout. The little
writing-table in each room would have its legs reglued, new wicks would
be inserted in the kerosene lamps, the stairs would be dazzled over with
soft soap, and the teeth in the comb down in the wash-room would be
reset and filled. Numerous changes would be made in the corps de ballet
also. The large-handed chambermaid, with the cow-catcher teeth and the
red Brazil-nut of hair on the back of her head, would be sent down in
the dining-room to recite that little rhetorical burst so often rendered
by the elocutionist of the dining-room--the smart Aleckutionist, in the
language of the poet, beginning: "Bfsteakprkstk'ncoldts," with a falling
inflection that sticks its head into the bosom of the earth and gives
its tail a tremolo movement in the air.
On receipt of $5 from each one of the traveling men of the union new
hinges would be put into the slippery-elm towels; the pink soap would be
revarnished; the different kinds of meat on the table will have tags on
them, stating in plain words what kinds of meat they are so that guests
will not be forced to take the word of servant or to rely on their own
judgement; fresh vinegar with a sour taste to it, and without microbes,
will be put in the cruets; the old and useless cockroaches will be
discharged; and the latest and most approved adjuncts of hotel life will
be adopted.
Why, then, should the traveling man hesitate? Why should he doubt and
draw back, falter and shrink? Why should he allow pessimism and other
foreign substances to get into his system and change his whole life?
Let him remit $5 to the Roller Towel House, and if this should prove a
success he may assist other hotels in the same manner. He would thus
feel an interest in their growth and prosperity. Then, as he became more
and more forehanded, he could assist the railroads, the 'bus lines, and
the boot-blacks, barbers, laundries, &c., in the same manner. I would
like to call upon the American people in the same way.
I would like very much to establish a nice, expensive home for
inebriates. It would cost, properly fitted up, about $750,000 or
$800,000. If those who read this article will lend $50, by express or
draft, I will take it out of their bill the first time they will stop at
my new and attractive inebriate asylum. Who will be the first to
contribute?--_Boston Globe._