News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-06-25
THE HOTEL CLERK.
A NEWSPAPER MAN WHO FILLED
THE PLACE BEHIND THE COUNTER.
And the Trouble he had In Providing for
the Press;

Peck, of the Milwaukee Sun, writes
his experience in the hotel business as
follows: Twenty-Five years ago, after
learning the printing trade, was offered
the clerkship in the Hyatt House, at
Janesville, Wis. The proprietor said
he wanted clerk that combined in
Himself all of the modern improvements,
goodness, gravity, go-a-keadativeness
and gall. My first duty on taking my
place behind the desk, was to look over
the accounts of the regular boarders,
and collect enough to buy a couple of
bushels OF potat5es and q half cord of
wood, to run the house for day or two,
.riu SrI51f 4 was Tree to inaugurate i'm
provements. The first guest that ar
rived under my administration was the
editor of paper at Watertown. As
soon as I saw the name said to myself,
''Now is the time to make myself and
the hotel solid with the press" knew
that the pen vss miRhtier than the
carving knife, and that the press had IL
fuenee. that, properly worked, would
make the hotel kpewn far and wide.
So I gave the editor the best room; end
told the head waiter to fill that man up
regardless. I have never seen a man
that seemed to enjoy a stay at hotel
as he did. I made it one continual
round of pleasure for him. Cigars and
liquors were as free as salvation, and
when he offered to pay his bill, said:
"No, not cent. You are welcome to
our hospitalities. Come any time, and
stay long, and don't ever again allude
to pay" Well, he acted as though he
was sorry he was going away, and the
next week his paper came out with an
item to the effect that the proprietofs OF
the Hyatt House had made ten strike
securing the services of the gentlemanly
and urbane Geo. Peck for clerk. had
never seen my name in print before as
gentlemanly and urbane, and I was not
exactly clear what the word "urbane"
meant, but it looked well, and was
happy. After the editor went away the
proprietor of the hotel came to me and
wanted. six dollars to buy meat, and
when T told him I couldn't let him
have any money until Chicago DRUM
mer paid his bill and went away, he
asked me what had become of the money
the Watertown editor had paid.
I had to tell him the baldheaded
truth, that I had not charged him
cent, and that 1t was a part of my
scheme to work the press in that way,
and boom the hotel. The proprietor
was hot. He said that I would ruin the
hotel business il that way in about four
days, and that could charge up tie
amount of the editors bill to myself.
It was cruel blow, but I stood it. For
a week pondered over my scheme of
booming the hotel by working the
press, and had figured it out in my
mind that it was a big thing, when
the bus drove up in front of the hotel
and the same editor got out and came in
and registered. turned pale, and the
proprietor, who stood near. looked like
a thunder cloud. At the end of his
name the editor had written, "wife and
two children" The porter picked up
my inanimate form behind the counter
and carried me to my room, where re-
storatives were applied, and by nightfall
I was able to go out, when I resigned
my position and went out of town on an
accommodation freight. How the editor
came out settling with the proprietor 1
never knew, but always thought it was
a mean trick for that editor to play his
wife and two children on me. While 1
must admit that my attempt to cause
the press and the hotel to go hand in
hand, and each be help and boon to
each other, was total failure, and
brought me into disrespect as a hotel
clerk in that early day, 1 am proud to
say that the good seed sown by me at
that time has taken root, and to-day all
good hotels are solid with the press and
nothing is too good for the wielders of
the Faber, and no words are too good in
the average newspaper for the hotel
man. Clerks that are cold and distant
to dukes and millionaires unbend and
become boon companions of night re-
porters, while hotel proprietors are
never so happy as when talking to edi-
tors out on the road behind their trot-
ters. May the time never come when
hotel proprietors will take as sordid
view of editors as did the proprietor of
the hotel in which I was clerk twenty
five years ago, when he yearned for six
dollars to buy meat, and it was not In
the cash drawer.