.

The lobby, though spacious, was crowded; the decorations and equipment
were of that rich sumptuousness attained only in the latest and most
magnificent American hotels; there was music, and as we made our way
along we caught a glimpse, in passing, of an attractive supper room,
with small table-lights casting their soft radiance upon white shirt
fronts and the faces of pretty girls. In all it was a place to make glad
the heart of the weary traveler, and to cause him to wonder whether his
dress suit would be wrinkled when he took it from his trunk.

Behind the imposing marble "desk" stood several impeccable clerks, and
to one of these I addressed myself, giving our names and mentioning the
fact that we had telegraphed for rooms. I am not sure that this young
man wore a braided cutaway and a white carnation; I only know that he
affected me as hotel clerks in braided cutaways and white carnations
always do. While I spoke he stood a little way back from the counter,
his chin up, his gaze barely missing the top of my hat, his nostrils
seeming to contract with that expression of dubiousness assumed by
delicate noses which sense, long before they encounter it, the aroma of
unworthiness.

"Not a room in the house," he said. Then, as though to forestall further
parley, he turned and spoke with gracious lightness to one of his own
rank and occupation who, at the request of my companion, was
ascertaining whether letters were awaiting us.

"But we telegraphed two days ago!" I protested desperately.

"Can't help it. Hardware Convention. Everything taken."

Over my shoulder I heard from my companion a sound, half sigh, half
groan, which echoed the cry of my own heart.

"I felt this coming!" he murmured. "Didn't you notice all these people
with ribbons on them? There's never any room in a hotel where
everybody's wearing ribbons. It's like a horse show. They get the
ribbons and we get the gate."

"Surely," I faltered, "you can let us have one small room?"

"Impossible," he answered brightly. "We've turned away dozens of people
this evening."

"Then," I said, abandoning hope, "perhaps you will suggest some other
hotel?"

I once heard a woman, the most perfect parvenu I ever met, speak of her
poor relations in a tone exactly similar to that in which the clerk now
spoke the names of two hotels. Having spoken, he turned and passed
behind the partition at one end of the marble counter.

My companion and I stood there for a