wth' was ready?"

"She did."

"Humph! Of all the--I hope she cleared out THEN?"

"She did."

"That's a mercy, anyhow. Did you take a bath in that dishpan?"

"I tried."

"Well, I didn't. I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer. I'd have felt as
if I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water and pour
it over me. Don't these English folks have real bathtubs for grown-up
people?"

I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed
several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an
American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred
the "dishpans."

We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and
to eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a "grilled sole" for the
first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as "fried
flatfish" we liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon,
to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who
laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my
neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished, was a rather convenient
person to have about. Hephzy fumed a good deal at first; she declared
that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied woman like her, to sit around
with her hands folded and do nothing. She asked her maid a great many
questions, and the answers she received explained some of her puzzles.

"Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?" she observed, referring
to the maid. "Eight shillin's--two dollars a week, that's what she gets.
And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson
can afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that
Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough
to boil water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters--why in the
world do they call women by their last names?--Peters, she's the maid,
says it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where
ignorance is bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but _I_
wouldn't fetch and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an
everyday body like me, for two dollars a week."

We learned that the hotel dining-room was a "Coffee Room."

"Nobody with sense would take coffee there--not more'n once, they
wouldn't," declared Hephzy. "I asked Peters why they didn't call it the
'Tea Room' and be done with it. She said because