TO AN HOTEL KEEPER

My dear Sir,—

Oft in the stilly night

My thoughts fly

In your direction,

For oft in the stilly night

It is my unfortunate habit

To have uncomfortable dreams,

And the worst of them

Runs to bankruptcy.

I have a horror of bankruptcy,

At any rate in my dreams.

I sometimes lie

Between the blankets

In a cold sweat

And for public examination as it were,

And the presiding genius of the court

Says to me, sepulchrally,

“To what do you attribute your financial rottenness?”

I fall into a colder sweat

And remark,

With a humility

Which becomes my unfortunate position,

“Sir, if you please,

I have been living at an hotel.”

At this juncture of course

I come in for every sympathy:

The Court is with me,

The Court has been there itself;

There is not a dry eye about the place,

Every man present knows what I mean,

And his heart is touched accordingly.

Sir,

My dear Sir,

You also know what I mean;

In other words, you know

That I am the victim of a convention,

And that, when all is said that can be said,

You are the author of that convention.

As to the nature of that convention

We will put it this way:

One pound of steak

To the actual consumer

Should cost, say, s. d.

Trimmings

In the way of potatoes and peas might cost, say, d.,

Bread, d.,

Pepper, salt, and mustard, d.

( You will notice that I put a princely price on everything ),

Total, s. d.

Fifty per cent. profit for you, let us say,

Would bring us up to s. d.

Really you ought to let one off for s. d.,

But what do you do?

Well,

So far as I can gather from your bills,

You lie awake at night

Debating with yourself

Whether you should charge one s. d. or s. d.

And you usually come to the conclusion

That it will be best

For all parties concerned

To charge one s.

If one expostulates,

You remark

With hauteur

That you thought you were dealing with a gentleman.

You are quite correct in this surmise.

But —

One pays,

And you pocket the difference.

Then, again, on one's bill

You put

Bed, s. d.

Which is cheap;

And I do not murmur;

But you also put

Attendance, s. d.;

Coffee in bedroom before rising, s.;

Bath, s. d.;

This is just s. too much,

Especially in view of the fact

That the attendance wears dirty shirts,

That the bath

Is lukewarm if you order it cold

And lukewarm if you order it hot;

And that the coffee before rising

Does n't cost you a farthing.

I am aware, of course,

That all this is very mean

And low down

On my part,

But frankly

Your rapacity

Matters not so much to me

As to yourself.

People come once to your establishment,

They read your bill,

Pay your prices

And tip your dirty-shirted waiters,

And go away

And forget to come back.

Hence

You are bound to charge

The next man that comes along

As much extra as he will stand,

And by slow degrees

Your establishment

Is becoming

A by-word

And a warning.

My dear Sir,

Have a shilling bottle of wine

( For which you charge me s. d. )

At your own expense,

Consult with your wife,

And make up your mind

Never to charge

More than s.

For d. worth of goods.

Honesty is its own reward —

It is really.