The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-03-11
The Hotel Clerk.

The hotel clerk is a young man who
was originally created to fill an Emperor's
throne or adorn Dukedom. but when he
! grew up, there being fewer thrones and
| doms than there were Emperors and
Dukes, he was temporarily forced to take
a position behind a hotel register. His
chief characteristics are dignity of bear
ing, radiant gorgeousness of apparel,
haughtiness of manner and jewelry. His
principal duties consist in hammering on
the call bell, in handing guests the wrong
keys to their rooms, and in keeping
supply of toothpicks on the end of the
desk. When all his time is not taken up
in the performance of these arduous du-
ties, he will condescend to explain to q
guest that he does not know whether the
north-bound train leaves at three p. m. or
not, and if the guest insists on enticing
further information out of him, he will
probably hand him last years official
railroad time table.
When stranger comes in on late
train, jams his valise down on the coun-
ter, and approaches the register, the hotel
clerk, in preoccupied and austere man.
ner, turns the register and hands the
stranger pen-a pen that has an i'm
pediment in its legs, catches in the paper,
and splutters fragments of the guests
name all over yesterday arrivals. " The
clerk, after turning around the register
and examining the signature to see if it
is genuine, expresses some doubt as to
there being vacant room in the house.
The stranger says he is bound to have a
room. The clerk retires behind the desk,
and after consulting some pigeon-holes,
concludes that the gentleman may have
No. 1892. He writes some hieroglyphics
on the register, and then he talks for
half an hour with the porter and the
baggage man about the trunk of the gem
tleman in No. 46, having got mixed
with the baggage belonging to the
| gentleman in No. ga. When he gets
that matter arranged he sits down to
polish and admire the long nail that he
is cultivating on his little finger, and
| forgets the gentleman that has rented
No. 1872, until he is made aware of
his existence by an impatient tap on the
counter. With the air of a martyr, and
a sigh that expresses the fact that he con-
siders the whole travelling public his
enemies, he says, ''Ah! would you like
to 80 to your room?n There is about
as much hospitality in his tone as there
is in the voice of bulldog, when some
body treads on his tail. 1t is not in
tended to be hospitable. 1t is in
tended to impress on the mind of the
stranger the fact that although
he-the clerks passing poor on
| $3.50 a week and board, vet
he is proud and is merely ILL
ing the ignoble position he now oc-
cupieS until he can come into his duke
dom, which include among its perquis-
tiles yacht on the coast, and a shoot
ing lodge in the highlands of Scotland.
Then John shows the gentleman to
No. 1,192.
No matter how crowded hotel is,
the hotel clerk always finds one room
left for the late arrival. When the
latter kicks about it, when he is leaving
next day, because it was on the fifth
floor, and was furnished with nothing
but bed, bar of soap, and crack in
ceiling, the clerk tells him that if he
had only been staying another day, he
could have had an excellent room, in
fact the best room in the house, which
would be vacated after breakfast, by
gentleman who was leaving on the noon
train. 10 our certain knowledge. the
gentlemsa has been leaving that excel
lent-that chest room in the house"
every tomorrow for the last twenty
years.
The hotel clerk is said to be distantly re-
lated to the railroad ticket clerk, but this
must be mistake having its origin in
the fact that there are certain traits and
atrocities of character common to both.
The hotel clerk has no relations Not
one man in thousand can remember
ever having seen hotel clerk father or
uncle.
The night clerk is no. so gorgeous or
inclement as the day clerk: He wears a
smaller finger ring and larger boot.
His duties are not so onerous as are those
of the day clerk. He sleeps in chair
near the stove or reads novels all night,
and his most important duty is to wake
up and speed the parting guest who goes
off on the morning train.
The hotel clerk has much to try him,
and perhaps we would find many ex-
cuses for what we consider his exasper-
ating peculiarities, if we stood on his
side of the register and had the expert
ence of how it feels to be target for the
grumbling, the fault-fnding, and the in
terrogatories of the average traveller
who lives on corn bread and bacon at
home, but bowls loud and long, because
he does not getturtle-soup and four kinds
of pie three times day when he stops at
a hotel.-Ieras Sittinqs.