s accordin' to their position in bear
society and settle down to a regular hotel life among themselves."

"But what do they feed upon?" asked Sapphira.

"Oh they'll eat anything when they're hungry," said Beelzy. "Sofa
cushions, parlor rugs, hotel registers--anything they can fasten their
teeth to. Last year they came in through the cupola, burrowin' down
through the snow to get at it, and there they stayed enjoyin' life out
o' reach o' the wind and storm, snug's bugs in rugs. Year before last
there must ha' been a hundred of 'em in the hotel when I got here, but
one by one I got rid of 'em. Some I smoked out with some cigars Mr.
Munchausen gave me the summer before; some I deceived out, gettin' 'em
to chase me through the winders, an' then doublin' back on my tracks
an' lockin' 'em out. It was mighty wearin' work.

"Last June there was twice as many. By actual tab I shooed two hundred
and eight bears and a panther off into the mountains. When the last
one as I thought disappeared into the woods I searched the house from
top to bottom to see if there was any more to be got rid of. Every
blessed one of the five hundred rooms I went through, and not a bear
was left that I could see. I can tell you, I was glad, because there
was a partickerly ugly run of 'em this year, an' they gave me a pile
o' trouble. They hadn't found much to eat in the hotel, an' they was
disappointed and cross. As a matter of fact, the only things they
found in the place they could eat was a piano stool and an old hair
trunk full o' paper-covered novels, which don't make a very hearty
meal for two hundred and eight bears and a panther."

"I should say not," said Sapphira, "particularly if the novels were as
light as most of them are nowadays."

"I can't say as to that," said Beelzy. "I ain't got time to read 'em
and so I ain't any judge. But all this time I was sufferin' like
hookey with awful spasms of whoopin' cough. I whooped so hard once it
smashed one o' the best echoes in the place all to flinders, an' of
course that made the work twice as harder. So, naturally, when I found
there warn't another bear left in the hotel, I just threw myself down
anywhere, and slept. My! how I slept. I don't suppose anything ever
slept sounder'n I did. And then it happened."

Beelzy gave his trousers a hitch and let his voice drop to a stage
whisper that lent a wondrous impressiveness to his narration.

"As I was a-layin' there unconscious, dreamin' of home