"My goodness! you _did_ fly high!" exclaimed Isidora, dimpling. "I guess it's no wonder they gave you a whole suite (she pronounced it 'soot') of rooms. But that's all right. You put on a card what you want the messenger boy should do, and you needn't be afraid to trust him. These little fellers are safe as banks."
With this, the first paying customer arrived, demanding beefsteak and apple pie for breakfast. Then, as if he had given the signal, others poured after him, all in a hurry, but all good-natured, and all bolting their meals (meals composed, it seemed to Val, of the most extraordinary dishes) with such incredible speed that the Englishman was startled. By the time he had finished writing his instructions, and a uniformed youth had darted off with them, almost the whole first contingent of breakfasters had gone, and given place to another.
Alexander the Great's clients consisted apparently of respectable employés of lower middle-class business houses. If they had not all been employed, Loveland reflected, they would not have been in such desperate haste; but then he had not yet studied the American temperament, north of "Dixie."
Bill Willing's habit was, when paid for his day's work, to find a seat in a small adjacent park and play with the children whose out-door nursery it was. There by witchcraft or wizardry his money was frequently wheedled from his pocket; and often by the time he returned to Alexander the Great's for early dinner, he was practically a pauper. It was after such conjuring tricks that he migrated at nightfall to his "country estate," as he called Central Park, and got through the hours as best he could, till half-past six next morning.
Today, however, he was encouraged to linger in the warm restaurant, Alexander's daughter being supreme in authority during her father's absence. Isidora saw that Bill had the food he liked best for breakfast; a steaming pile of buckwheat cakes trimmed round the edges with crisp brown lace, and oozing syrup at every pore. Also she sent him a copy of "New York Light" without having even glanced at the front page, although a "gentleman friend" who had paid her a great deal of attention last summer was at the beginning of his trial for a really exciting murder.