"Well, bring an egg and some toast," I said, amiably.
"Sorry, sir," chirped up Bright Eyes, "but cook's just beaten up the egg. She says you can have your share of it in the meringue pudding at dinner."
"What _have_ you got, then?" I demanded with some acrimony.
"Hot lamb, cold lamb, roast lamb, and minced lamb," she gurgled. I subsequently ascertained that they sheared the lamb a few days before and that the poor innocent caught cold and died.
If they were as strict in their menu in these country hotels as they are in their rules, it would be all right. No hotel is complete without a long list of "Don'ts for Guests," plastered on the inside of the door. Here are a few that appealed to me with especial force:
"Please do not tip the waiters or the porter." (As the waiters did nothing for me and the porter weighed 285 pounds I conformed to this rule.)
"In event of fire an alarm will be sounded on the gongs if the night clerk is awake. The fire-escapes are in the office safe. In case of fire you can have one after you have paid your bill."
It is hard to get a decent night's rest in these hostelries. If it isn't one thing it's another. Last Saturday I was so tired that I felt I wouldn't care if I jumped Sunday right out of the calendar. Sunday morning I was sleeping beautifully when there was a rap on the door.
"Been't you a goin' to git up?" came a squeaky voice.
"Breakfast comes in half an hour," said the squeak.
"Don't want any breakfast," I thundered back.
"What in blazes is that to me?" I snarled.
Do not worry. I shall not write long letters to "the House." They will be as short as my expense account will permit.
P.S. On the dead, now, did my recital of my hotel experiences make you laugh? They are not quite genuine. How do you think they would go as a part of my sample line of stories for the trade?
_Pierrepont meets with some curious experience "on the road;" attends a "badger fight," and relates some of his adventures in country hotels._
There's no use in telling me that I've got to dream hog if I want to get a raise--for that's what all this rumpus on the road amounts to, after all. There's no need, I say, to enforce the lesson, for I have porcine nightmares every time I go to bed out in this uncivilized country. And I _do_ wake up with determination--the determination to do something to get back to dear old Chicago, if I have to do the Weary Waggles act over the pike. When I think that I used to disparage our city in comparison with Boston, I feel very humble indeed. In comparison with the villages I've struck since I've been the _avant courier_ of Graham & Co., Chicago is a paradise which no sensible man ought to depreciate. Milligan used to tell about a purgatory to which wandering souls have to go for a bit of scrubbing up to fit them for the good things of heaven. Of course he referred to experience on the road.