He agreed to
this, would be an advertisement for his coach.
When we got on the street where the Babylon Hotel was he whipped up his
horses so that they went almost on a run, and the horner blew his horn
until his eyes seemed bursting, and with a grand sweep and a clank and
a jingle we pulled up at the front of the big hotel. Out marched the
head porter in a blue uniform, and out ran two under-porters with red
coats, and down jumped the horner and put up his ladder, and Jone and I
got down, after giving the coachman half-a-crown, and receiving from
the passengers a combined gaze of differentialism which had been wholly
wanting before. The men in the red coats looked disappointed when they
saw we had no baggage, but the great doors was flung open and we went
straight up to the clerk's desk.
When we was taken to look at rooms I remembered that there was always
danger of Jone's tendency to thankful contentment getting the better of
him, and I took the matter in hand myself. Two rooms good enough for
anybody was shown us, but I was not going to take the first thing that
was offered, no matter what it was. We settled the matter by getting a
first-class room, with sofas and writing-desks and everything
convenient, for only a little more than we was charged for the other
rooms, and the next morning we went there.
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