The clerk stared at Emma McChesney, and Emma McChesney coolly stared
back at the clerk.

"Our aim," began he, loftily, "is to make our guests as comfortable as
possible on all occasions. But the last lady drummer who--"

"That's all right," interrupted Emma McChesney, "but I'm not the kind
that steals the towels, and I don't carry an electric iron with me,
either. Also I don't get chummy with the housekeeper and the dining-
room girls half an hour after I move in. Most women drummers are
living up to their reputations, but some of us are living 'em down.
I'm for revision downward. You haven't got my number, that's all."

A slow gleam of unwilling admiration illumined the clerk's chill eye.
He turned and extracted another key with its jangling metal tag, from
one of the many pigeonholes behind him.

"You win," he said. He leaned over the desk and lowered his voice
discreetly. "Say, girlie, go on into the cafe and have a drink on me."

"Wrong again," answered Emma McChesney. "Never use it. Bad for the
complexion. Thanks just the same. Nice little hotel you've got here."

In the corridor leading to sixty-five there was a great litter of
pails, and mops, and brooms, and damp rags, and one heard the sigh of
a vacuum cleaner.

"Spring house-cleaning," explained the bellboy, hurdling a pail.