But it could not succeed. A salacious play which made a considerable commercial success took its title from the new hotel and called itself "The Girl from R----'s." That was the last straw. It might have been good fun for the man from Baraboo or the man from Jefferson City to come to New York and dine quietly and elegantly at R----'s, but to stop at R----'s hotel, to have his mail sent there, to have the local paper report that he was registered at that really splendid hostelry--ah, that was a different matter, indeed. Your Baraboo citizen had some fairly conservative connections--church and business--and he took no risks. The new hotel went bankrupt.[A]
[A] Another hotel man has just taken the property. His first step has been to change its name and, if possible, its reputation. E. H.
Beer and rarebits, indeed. Sam Blythe tells of the little group of four who went into a hotel grillroom not far from Forty-second street and Broadway, who mildly asked for beer and rabbits.
"We have fine partridges," said the head-waiter, insinuatingly.
"We asked for beer and rabbits," insisted the host of the little group. He really did not know his New York.
"We have fine partridges," reiterated the head-waiter, then yawned slightly behind his hand. That yawn settled it. The head of the party was bellicose. He lost his temper completely. In a few minutes an ambulance and a patrol wagon came racing up Broadway. But the hotel had won. It always does.
One thing more--the _cabaret_. We think that if you are really fond of Katherine, and Katherine's reputation, you will avoid the restaurants that make a specialty of the so-called _cabarets_. Really good restaurants manage to get along without them. And the very best that can be said of them is that they are invariably indifferently poor--a _mélange_ contributed by broken-down actors or actresses, or boys or girls stolen from the possibilities of a really decent way of earning a living. As for the worst, it is enough to say that the familiarity that begins by breeding contempt follows in the wake of the _cabaret_. It may be very jolly for you, of a lonely summer evening in New York and forgetting all the real pleasures of a lonely summer night in the big town--wonderful orchestral concerts in Central Park, dining on open-air terraces and cool quiet roofs, motoring off to wonderful shore dinners in queer old taverns--to hunt out these great gay places in the heart of the town. Easy _camaraderie_ is part and parcel of them. But you will not want such comrades to meet any of the Katherines of your family. And therein lies a more than subtle distinction.