cause I haven't met many others, I don't know
whether or not the Rollses are just like all American millionaires who
don't come abroad, or unique. But I have an idea they're _unique_.
This is the most enormous house, built and named to please Ena,
though it's no more a manor than the Albert Hall is. I don't believe
she knows what "manor" means. Every bedroom I've seen (and I _think_
I've been shown all, if I haven't lost count) has its own bathroom
adjoining, and a sitting-room as well. In each bathroom there are
several different kinds of baths, and a marble one you step down into,
but it's bitterly cold on your spine--the only cold thing in the
house, which is so hot with a furnace that even the walls and floors
feel warm, although I keep my windows wide open day and night.
The pillow-cases and sheets are made of such rich, thick linen, and
are so smooth and polished that you slip down off your pillows with a
crick in your neck, and the sheets slide off you, just as if they were
made of heavy silver, like lids of dishes. Perhaps the monograms and
crests drag them down. It's awful, but it's grand. And I should think
there are at least twenty footmen with--if you'll believe me--powdered
hair!
Of course, poor Ena took a fancy to it in England. I don't think she
stayed at any houses, but she was at some hotel where they have it, so
she didn't see why not. If you ring a bell, dozens of these
helpless-looking, white-headed creatures in black and yellow simply
swarm from every direction, like great insects when you've poured hot
water into their hive--or hole.
If any really nice people happen to stop in their motor for any reason
at the house in the morning, say about eleven o'clock, they are
offered magnums of champagne, as if out of gratitude for their coming.
They hardly ever seem to do more than sip, so perhaps the black and
yellow insects get the rest. There's an English butler, and it would
make your heart bleed, or else you'd want to howl, if you saw his
agonized, apologetic look whenever you, as a British person, knowing
about other ways of running a house, happened to catch his elderly
eye.
Mr. and Mrs. Rolls get up at goodness knows what hour and have
breakfast together, so does Petro--that's the nickname for the son.
But Ena and Mubs and Rags and I can wallow as long as we like and have
gorgeous breakfasts in our rooms. Mubs thinks Mrs. R. is a fool,
because she can hardly understand what a woman wants
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