look of amazement that had stolen over the professor's face, the clerk
said:

"If you wait in the reading room, I'll send Yates to you when he comes.
The boy will find him if he's in the house; but he may be uptown."

The professor, disliking to trouble the obliging clerk further, did not
ask him where the reading room was. He inquired, instead, of a hurrying
porter, and received the curt but comprehensive answer:

"Dining room next floor. Reading, smoking, and writing rooms up the
hall. Billiard room, bar, and lavatory downstairs."

The professor, after getting into the barber shop and the cigar store,
finally found his way into the reading room. Numerous daily papers were
scattered around on the table, each attached to a long, clumsy cleft
holder made of wood; while other journals, similarly encumbered, hung
from racks against the wall. The professor sat down in one of the easy
leather-covered chairs, but, instead of taking up a paper, drew a thin
book from his pocket, in which he was soon so absorbed that he became
entirely unconscious of his strange surroundings. A light touch on the
shoulder brought him up from his book into the world again, and he saw,
looking down on him, the stern face of a heavily mustached stranger.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but may I ask if you are a guest of this
house?"

A shade of apprehension crossed the professor's face as he slipped the
book into his pocket. He had vaguely felt that he was trespassing when
he first entered the hotel, and now his doubts were confirmed.