Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-10-31
THE HOTEL BELL BOY.
ODD WAY IN WHICH HE IS RE-
 GARDED BY THE GUESTS.

The bell beneath the annunciator in the office of a Broadway hotel gave a gentle, penetrating tang, as good annunciator bells will one evening recently, and the little num- bered tag that dropped at the same instant indicated that the call came from q room away up ill the hundreds and presumably proportionately far up in the hotel. The clerk interrupting his perusal of the evening paper he had bought five hours before and was just finding his first opportunity of read ing, swung around In his chair, reached out his hand for his own sharper toned bell to summon a boy, and instinctively fixed his lips to call shrilly:
 ''Frontr
 Before his hand touched the bell or sound had left his lips one little bell boy put an eager face over the desk and four more swung up in line almost at the same moment, every one with bright and hopeful look on his face that seemed to show that, for them at least, work was pleasure. The clerk looked at the one who had got to the desk first, glanced back at the number on the tag, and said:
 ''Ten, go see what's wanted in three"-
 "Yessir!" and without waiting for the rest of the sentence the boy was off, his compan- ions slouched discontentedly back to their seats, and the clerk, turning and twisting the crank of the annunciator, sat down to his paper again, the numbered tag flying back to its place with an almost imperceptible click. A minute or two later there was another tang from the soft toned bell, and the clerk again reached around for his own bell, and twisted his mouth to say:
 "Frontl"
 This time he had to tap the bell not only once, but twice, the second time with very vicious touch indeed, and to call "Frontm in his very sharpest tone before even one bell boy dragged himself up before the desk One of the other boys had suddenly noticed that his shoestring needed tying, another had to stop to button his jacket and the rest seemed to be tagging behind on general principles
 ''Go see what is wanted at 230."
 ''Ye-e-ssir;" and the boy lazily dragged himself away as slowly as good fortune pur- suing an unlucky man.
 Before the boy was fairly started the an nunciator bell rang again for the same num- Der. The clerk calmly gave the crank q twist and restored the tag to its place. When he had to do the same thing a second time in less than half minute there was little em- phasis in the twist, and for the third repeti- tion of the ring he had a muttered eXecration of ''that boy" but he let the tag hang down, and any subsequent attempted rings by the occupant of 2S0 interested the clerk no more. SOnleOOuy aSkeu tue CleTk why Deu DOSS were so quick and spry one moment and so lazy the next. He smiled dryly and said:
 ''They know what they are going to get"
 Pressed further, he vouchsafed the inform ation that the first ring had come from a room where the bell boy was pretty certain to get tip, while the second was from a room the occupant of.which did not believe in encouraging the cigarette habit by giving boys nickels.
 'The little rascals see the number on the annunciator before I do," he said, land they're sharp enough in getting to the front If the call is from q room where they think they are likely to get anything"
 The clerks explanation was confirmed by | the appeara""e about this time of the boy sent out on the first call, with something in his hand that he rubbed bright on his jacket sleeve, and then held up tantalizingly before the other boys before he put it in his pocket | The boy sent on the second call may have died on tho way, or merely have been over taken by old age and broken down, but he 1 failed to put ill an appearance so long as a casual observer who took an interest in bell boys waited, and repeated agitations of the dropped down tag of room 230 seemed to in dicate that some one there was i'll q frantic state of mind over something or other.
 At most hotels the bell boy business nova days has been reduced to so much of a science that this sort of thing could not occur. The effort of the clerks is to reduce the boys to machines, and they have to hop lively when the bell rings, and go and come quickly, no matter whose is the call or what the pros poets of tip. It is a good deal easier for a hotel to get new bell boy than for bell boy to get new hotel, and the boys risk their situations little as possible. The idea of | bell boys as machines is not confined to the hotel clerks, however. The guests whom the boys serve, especially the women guests, re- gard them ill much the same light.
 If bell boys ever told tales except among themselves, a great many women who live at hotels would be inexpressibly shocked. Opium, whisky, rouge, morphine, belladonna and The Police Gazette are only few of the things that bell boys in any of the big hotels are sent after by the female guests almost daily, while the carriage of a note to such a looking gentleman on such and such corner or the caring for of epistles to be called for by tall, handsome man with black mus tache-and incidentally with a quarter for the boy-is an everyday matter. It never seems to occur to woman that bell boy is 8 good deal like anybody else ill noticing things, putting this and that together, and drawing conclusions. Occasionally women, and men too for that matter, have their at
 
 the appearance of an unexpected hotel em- ploye with missing link in the evidence in a divorce suit; but generally the confidence put in the boys seems to be pretty well founded, for they are a close mouthed lot, as any one who has ever attempted to get them to tell some of their experiences will admit
 Family Quarrels are another thing with which the bell boys in the. big hotels become extensively acquainted by actual observa, tion- The average husband and wife seem , to think that a bell boy doesn't count when they are having their little differences ot opinion and the boy waits in the room until 1t is settled whether 0 carriage shall be ordered at for the theatre or at 10 for the ball; whether the bridal tour shall end right here as the nasty mean old thing" wishes or shall be kept up for a week longer as the wife desires. Men who would be shocked al anything approaching slight to their wife before "folks' call her little fool before bell boys without compunction, and the wife < who is always picture of humility wheI ''folks" are around, refers to her better hal