Serrin headed for the bathroom opposite the bed, and wrenched the tub’s brass hot-water tap into life. One of the few things he appreciated about Brits was the ambivalent quality of hotel baths: lots of towels, excellent, subtly perfumed soaps, and appalling plumbing and cold bathrooms. The chill guaranteed that you’d want to stay in the hot water of the bath purely to survive. The plumbing, however, guaranteed that every bathtime was something of an adventure; would you get enough hot water to fill the respectably large tubs before it ran lukewarm?