sluice-gate and cemetery."--U.-L.P. expostulates; he has telegraphed
for a good room; it's _too_ bad.--"Ver' sawy, but is quite complete
now, se Hôtel." U.-L.P., furious; "Hang it," &c. "Mr." deprecates this
ingratitude--"Ver' sawy, Sor; but if you don't like," (with decision),
"se whole wide wurrld is open to you!" Pedestrian retires, threatening
to write to the _Times_. Preposterous! as if the Editor would print
anything against "Mr."! "Mr.'s" attitude majestic and martyred;
CASABIANCA in a frock-coat! Bless you! he knows us all, better than
we know ourselves. He sees the Cook's ticket through the U.-L.P.'s
Norfolk-jacket.

[Illustration: "He sees the Cook's ticket through the U.-L.P.'s
Norfolk-jacket."]

When "Mr." is not writing, he is changing money. The sheepish Briton
stands dumb before this financier, and is shorn--of the exchange,
with an oafish fascination at "Mr.'s" dexterous manipulation of the
_rouleaux_ of gold and notes. Nobody dares haggle with "Mr." When he
is not changing money, he is, as I have said, writing, perhaps his
Reminiscences. It is "Mr." "What gif you se informations;" and _what_
questions! The seasoned Pensionnaire wants to know how she can get
to that _lovely_ valley where the Tiger-lilies grow, without taking a
carriage. The British Matron, where she can buy rusks, "real English
rusks, you know." A cantankerous tripper asks "why he never has
bread-sauce with the nightly chicken." And we all troop to "Mr." after
breakfast, to beg him to affix postage-stamps to our letters, and to
demand the precise time when "they will reach England;" as if they
wouldn't reach at all without "Mr.'s" authority. It gives the nervous
a sense of security to watch "Mr." stamping envelopes. It is a way of
beginning the day in a Grand Hôtel.