To-morrow morning I leave for Boston at ten o'clock to begin the lecture tour in that city, or, to use an Americanism, to "open the show."
It is the hall porter with a letter: an invitation to dine with the members of the Clover Club at Philadelphia on Thursday next, the 16th.
I look at my list of engagements and find I am in Pittsburg on that day.
I take a telegraph form and pen the following, which I will send to my friend, Major M. P. Handy, the president of this lively association:
Many thanks. Am engaged in Pittsburg on the 16th. Thank God, cannot attend your dinner.
I remember how those "boys" cheeked me two years ago, laughed at me, sat on me. That's my telegram to you, dear Cloverites, with my love.
Arrived here this afternoon, and resumed acquaintance with American hotels.
Describe one and you have described them all.
On the ground floor, a large entrance hall strewed with cuspidores for the men, and a side entrance provided with a triumphal arch for the ladies. On this floor the sexes are separated as at the public baths.
In the large hall, a counter behind which solemn clerks, whose business faces relax not a muscle, are ready with their book to enter your name and assign you a number. A small army of colored porters ready to take you in charge. Not a salute, not a word, not a smile of welcome. The negro takes your bag and makes a sign that your case is settled. You follow him. For the time being you lose your personality and become No. 375, as you would in jail. Don't ask questions; theirs not to answer; don't ring the bell to ask for a favor, if you set any value on your time. All the rules of the establishment are printed and posted in your bedroom; you have to submit to them. No question to ask--you know everything. Henceforth you will have to be hungry from 7 to 9 A.M.; from 1 to 3 P.M.; from 6 to 8 P.M. The slightest infringement of the routine would stop the wheel, so don't ask if you could have a meal at four o'clock; you would be taken for a lunatic, or a crank (as they call it in America).
Between meals you will be supplied with ice-water _ad libitum_.
No privacy. No coffee-room, no smoking-room. No place where you can go and quietly sip a cup of coffee or drink a glass of beer with a cigar. You can have a drink at the bar, and then go and sit down in the hall among the crowd.