"HERE ARE SOME NEW LAID EGGS FOR YOU, GEORGIE!"

"OH, THANKS! HOW NICE! I HAVEN'T SEEN A NEW LAID EGG FOR WEEKS! HOW DO
YOU MANAGE TO GET THEM? OH, OF COURSE--YOU'VE GOT _AN INCUBATOR_!"]

* * * * *

INNS AND OUTS.

NO. III.--THE PORTER.

I had intended to have written, this week about "Loggosh"--including
that mysterious canvass hand-box which contains all that a foreigner
cares to carry about with him by day, and often pillows him when
travelling by night; but the very mention of luggage brings me back
to the Porter. I abominate him. I am "one who has suffered." So here
goes!

"Imposing," best describes the Hôtel porter; a very Grand Hôtel has
at least two of these impositions--the House Porter and the Omnibus
Porter. The latter you only see twice in your Hôtel existence, but he
is the most futile and the deadliest fraud of the two.

This Porter is part and parcel of that horrible deep-red-plush
nuisance, the Hôtel-omnibus. He and it are inseparables, and make up
a sort of Centaur between them. Once outside the Railway-station, I
am besieged by a babel of these Porter-omnibuses--"Bear Hôtel, Sor;"
"Grand Hôtel, Sor!"--This, from a very dilapidated specimen, which,
on inspection, turns out to be "Grand Hôtel Du Lac;" a pirate