The reception clerk looked up from the hotel register and shook his head
firmly. "Very sorry, saire," he said, "not a bed in ze house." And he
closed the book with a snap.

Outside the rain came down heavens hard. Every one who came into the
brightly lit hotel vestibule entered with a gush of water. I felt I
would rather die than face the wind-swept streets of Rotterdam again.

I turned once more to the clerk who was now busy at the key-rack.

"Haven't you really a corner? I wouldn't mind where it was, as it is
only for the night. Come now..."

"Very sorry, saire. We have two gentlemen sleeping in ze bathrooms
already. If you had reserved..." And he shrugged his shoulders and bent
towards a visitor who was demanding his key.

I turned away with rage in my heart. What a cursed fool I had been not
to wire from Groningen! I had fully intended to, but the extraordinary
conversation I had had with Dicky Allerton had put everything else out
of my head. At every hotel I had tried it had been the same
story--Cooman's, the Maas, the Grand, all were full even to the
bathrooms. If I had only wired....

As I passed out into the porch I bethought myself of the porter. A hotel
porter had helped me out of a similar plight in Breslau once years ago.
This porter, with his red, drink-sodden face and tarnished gold braid,
did not promise well, so far as a recommendation for a lodging for the