Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-07-16
WE'LL, SOMEBODY MUST

"Pity the woes, of a hotel managers wife
who lives In the same hotel that her hus-
band manages!', drearily exclaimed the
wife Of the manager Of a Washington
| apartment hotel to a party OF women
friends the other day. THE women guests
carry all OF their grievances to her, and
take 1t out on her. My apartment has be-
come sort ief kick bureau. to which all
of the women in the house instantly repair
when things Qaround the hotel don't go to
| suit them.
| You remember how muddy the Potomac
water was a while ago2 Well. the filtering
plant at the hotel my husband manages
and at which 1 live with him. because he
doesn't like housekeeping was temporarily
/ out OF order during that spell of muddy
Potomac water. and it seemed as II every
blessed woman in the hotel to whom I had
| Deen introduced rushed to my apartment to
| hold me personally responsible for 1t.
| Why. l wouldn't even battle my dog in
| such looking water! half dozen OF them
| told me. with the sourest imaginable faces.
| II told them that knew the water was
| muddy, but that / myself had to battle in
II or go unbathed. but that didn't appease
them in the least. / didn't want to be
| rude, and couldn't come out plainly and
| tell them that the muddiness of the Poto-
| mac river was a circumstance over which
! had no control. and that the breakdown
OF the hoters fltering plant was matter
| that was none of my business anyhow, ard
! SO Just mad to sit and listen to their
| walls ana DO the best could to comfort
| them.
The blue fish at dinner the other day
wasn't exactly up to the mark. Five of
! the women guests hustled right straight to
my room Immediately after the meal
| here did the house get such dreadful
| nsn! they asked me, breathlessly, impaling
/ me with their reproachful eyes
told them that the fish had probably
got by the chef accidentally.
But it hadn't ought to get by hinr
they all but shreked. There ought to be
somebody to see that such fish doesn't get
| by him.! and from the hard glances they
bestowed upon me IT was perfectly obvious
that they thought that 1 ought to be that
someDody. l couldn't tell them that I had
ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the manage
ment OF the hotel; that 1 had never even
set foot IN the kitchen, and that 1 had no
| more to do with the fish at dinner than
they had. II had told them that they
would have gone off among themselves and
called me 'snippy' and stuck-up,' and so
on. women In family hotel. you see.
don't consider that the hotel managers
wl1e mas any right or license to live in the
motel as a guest They take it that she
ought naturally to- do something for her
. noard and Keep. and the something that
tney expect her to do is to stand for all
OF thelr walls and means over the grievous
ana terrible Hismanagement Of the house
me hall outside my door hasn't been
1872 eiiio WCch. an exceedingly teSty Old
lady hurried into my room to tell me right
after l had had my breakfast in my room
the other morning
Have you seen the housekeeper about
she fared up instantly
NO. haven't seen the housekeeper'
she retorted. I am not accustomed to
making complaints to servants
But the housekeeper has the regulation
or the chambermaids in charge 1 told her
as gently as 1 could.
Well. the housekeeper doesn't attend
10 her duties, them she came back at me-
ana there ought to be somebody around
here-hxing me with her trating eye
to see that she does attend to her work
Perhaps. Them l suggested. it might
be well for You to make complaint at the
What SHOULD I do that for? she asked
me. with every evidence of Arrangement in
her expression. Fam 1 not making my
complaint here to you?
Z" But. madam,'f,I simply couldn't helm
but say to her. T am not officially con-
nected with the management of this hotel
have no more to do with its supervision
than you have. 1 live here because my
husband is the manager of the house But
he considers my health too fra gile to allow
me to work around here in any capacity.
Even II L were robust woman l don't
believe he would permit me to serve as an
attache of the house
She went out smuttering something tart
about the women 4of these days never help
Ing their husbands, but sitting around hold
ing their hands and reading novels and
she has been most distressingly austere
toward me ever since
Il was at dinner in the dining room the
other evening when one of the new tabby
guests, woman whom 1 had only met
once. left her table and came over to mine
DO you know she asked me. most re-
sentfuily, that the girl hasn't put any
towels in my room yet today and here it
Is q O'Clock in the evening? l wish YOU
would bring some towels up to my room or
have somebody bring them,' and then she
Haunted back to her own table. giving me
no opportunity to tell her-as 1 certainly
should have told her-that any time she
ever found me running around a hotel hall
with a pile of towels on my arm distrtb-
uting them that time would be contempo-
raneous with the falling Of two feet of
purple snow In mid-July.
And the worst of 1t Is that every time
tell my husband how all the women in
the house hold me personally accountable
for everything that goes wrong in the hotel
he only Fuckers up his lips and grins and
then whistles the first few bars of that
plaintive air, Somebody Has Got to Be
the Patsy.
Il am at length ceasing to extract amuse-
ment from being the kick department of
large family hotel, and l know of one
Washington hotel manager who is going to
install his wife in some kind of little
establishment of her own next fall even
If it's only the size of Glen Echo cottage.
or have no peace of his life with the spouse
of his BOSOM