Leopold Lewis

“ I cried, “and have this affair explained. A pretty hotel this seems to be. I am kept waiting half the night ringing at the bell. Breakfast is refused me, and my bill is thrust upon me without my asking for it. Who do you take me for? Eh?”
I advanced upon the head-waiter; he retreated in terror.
“Don’t, sir, don’t. I am a family man, and not a bad sort: but hotels is hotels, sir, and can’t afford to be ruined. Whole families turning out—families from the Philippine Islands—two Nabobs, and one a general—ain’t they nothing? ”

“ What have I done?”
“It seems,” said Tom, “that there is an elderly gentleman from America stopping in the house with his family. He is of very nervous temperament, and from having some short time ago severely suffered from the effects of a fire upon his premises, exists in a perpetual state of alarm as to one breaking out wherever he may be. In fact, he is almost a monomaniac upon the subject. Now, it appears that it was you who rang the bell last night. Loverock, the waiter, who sleeps down-stairs, says he opened the street-door to you at one o’clock. ”

“ I have been wanting to laugh, and have not dared.”
“What is it all about?”
“Well, my dear boy,” said Tom, “it seems it was you who did it after all.”
“Impossible! I wasn’t in the hotel.”
“Just listen for one moment. I have been making inquiries all over the house, and have had interviews with the parties concerned. I think I have found it all out, and if I know anything of the laws of cause and effect, it was you who did it. However, don’t make yourself uneasy. I have cleared up the matter now, and appeased the landlady, and they have determined to forgive you.” ”

“ The little gentleman stared hard at me.
“You must be a sound sleeper, young man—a very sound sleeper; but perhaps it did not happen to you. Did it?”
Not having the remotest idea as to what the question referred, I answered in the negative.
“Perhaps,” said the little gentleman, “you do not even know what did happen—eh?”
“No.”
“Very extraordinary,” said the little gentleman, and then he went on nervously: “I never went through such a night—never. A man of my weak nerves, too. ”

“ I hope you are satisfied with the mischief of which you have been the cause. The affair of last night may be my ruin, and I have to thank you for it. (She pointed to the book.) I am now making out the bill of Number 4; a gentleman suffering from the gout. How can he be expected to remain in a hotel where he is pulled out of bed in the middle of the night, and dragged about his room by the leg? Here is the family in Number 18, who have been in hysterics ever since, and who threaten me with an action for the loss of wigs and teeth and all sorts of valuable property. ”

“ It loses one’s whole day. I should like to catch my friend the F. D. or the Funny Devil, or whatever he is, I’d show him some fun, although I am a man of weak nerves. Good morning.”
And Mr. Bamby took up his hat and umbrella, and trotted out of the room. As he went out the head-waiter came in. I looked hungrily towards him, but he only carried an empty plate in one hand, and advanced with great solemnity, bearing it before him like a church-warden going round after a charity sermon. He presented it to me. I looked at him, and then at the plate.
“What’s this? Where is the breakfast, fellow? ”

“ I can’t make him out either. He has been bringing me wrong things all the morning. I ordered fish, and he brought me cutlets. I don’t like cutlets. Then he brought me a fish-slice to cut the butter with. Ridiculous! And, look at these cruets, not one of them will go into the stand. As an excuse, he says he has been greatly agitated. So have I been agitated! So has everyone been agitated after the disgraceful proceedings of last night. ”

“ I am not a bad sort, sir; but I am a family man, sir; I have a wife and three small children, one of ’em, sir, now in arms and cutting its teeth, sir; and when a family man has been examined in the way I have been; when it’s been extricated out of me by threats—threats of the most horrid natur—when a hunder waiter has been threatened to be put over my head—a hunder waiter so ignorant of ’rithmetic that he don’t know plated spoons from silver ones—how could I help it? ”