Year: 1874

| can shake hands with Governor, sit be
side an alderman, and smoke with State Sen
| ator, and never feel my littleness; but when
| come to stand in the presence of the modern
| hotel clerk, l feel that awe and inferority
| which tourists feel they stand in the Yose
mite valley and look up at the mountain tops
| of thousand feet above.


There is something about that young man
standing behind the counter of frst-class ho-
| tel which is calculated to hold the common ma
| at distance; you may gaze at him if you wish
| to-in fact he is there TO be gazed at-but don't
attempt to be familiar. l would as soon think
of dining with the crater of a volcano as of GO
ing up, extending hand to hotel clerk, and


asking him if his family were enjoying tolera-
bly, good health. | sometimes dream of being
thus familiar, and when wake l feel if l


had been frozen.


The dignity, asperity and condescension Of
the modern hotel clerk ! Did you notice
how he resents any attempted familiarity of
travellers? If man calls him cold boy" or
yells "Say you fellow there !" no well-bred
clerk lets on that he hears. He goes right on
reading the morning newspaper, ami finally
that familiar traveller has to put on a beseech-
ing look, and timidly ask


"Please; mister, will you kindly permit me
to disturb you while humbly inquire if that
Toledo train leaves at eight o'clock or at half
past"


The clerk will raise his eyes from the paper,
drop them, raise them TO the clock, gently move
them around the room, and finally reply


81 guess So.


With what dignity they receive and assign
guests. If the traveller asks for a rooom on the
first floor, on account of his lame leg, the clerk
lies back on his dignity and assigns him to the
top story as punishment, and if all the earth
quakes which ever quaked were TO attempt to
alter the clerks determination, they would get
beaten.


used to believe that hotel clerks were like
hotel walters, and that bribe would fetch 'em :
but found out my error when trying to pass
crumpled ten cent note into the young mans
hand. He drew back with such look OF scorn
and contempt, on his face hat didn't dare to
register at all, but slept in barn and break
tasted cheese and crackers | heard after
ward that he had been killed by railroad col
lsion, but don't see how any such thing could
have disturbed his dignity.


There are times when the hotel clerk will un
bend. 1t is when traveller says that he has
wandered all over the world. stopped at all
kinds of hotels and seen all sorts of clerks, yet
in ell his experience he had never seen such
hotel and such clerk as that. There are we'll
authenticated accounts ofat least two clerks who
after being thus addressed, allowed something
like smile TO cross their faces as they offered
the persons addressing them ive-cent cigar.


| can never forget the case of young Temple
ton; he was clerk of the Grand Duke, and dur
ing the eleven years of service in that position
he had never been known to smile, or to answer
a civil question when he could hel pit Every
body thought he owned the hotel, and every
body took off their hats to him nd approached
him with awe and trembling. He died one day
though 1 don't see how death dared to fool
around him. Twas on the coroner's jury, which
rendered verdict that "the deceased came to
his death from an overplus of lofty grandeur,
fastened by too large an amount of unbending
p-loftiness."- Wauerly Magazine.