“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.
I went back to the Wife.
“Do you know what we’re payin’ for that room?” I says. “We’re payin’ seventeen dollars.”
“Well,” she says, “our meals is throwed in.”
“Yes,” says I, “and the hotel furnishes a key.”
“You promised in St. Augustine,” she says, “that you wouldn’t worry no more about expenses.”
Well, rather than make a scene in front o’ the bellhops and the few millionaires that was able to be about at that hour o’ the mornin’, I just says “All right!” and led her into the dinin’ room.
The head waiter met us at the door and turned us over to his assistant. Then some more assistants took hold of us one at a time and we was relayed to a beautiful spot next door to the kitchen and bounded on all sides by posts and pillars. It was all right for me, but a whole lot too private for the Missus; so I had to call the fella that had been our pacemaker on the last lap.
“We don’t like this table,” I says.