Mr. Towel has made a rapid calculation on the buttered side of a menu, and ascertained that if one-half the traveling men in the United States would kindly advance $5, to be refunded in case they did not decide to make a tour to the Roller Towel House, and to be taken out of the bill in case they did, the amount so received would not only add a row of compressed hot-air bedrooms, with flexible soap and a delirious-looking glass, but also insure an electric button, which may or may not connect with the office, and over which said button the following epitaph could be erected:
One Ring for Bell Boy. Two Rings for Porter. Three Rings for Ice Water. Four Rings for Rough on Rats. Five Rings for Borrowed Money. Six Rings for Fire. Seven Rings for Hook and Ladder Company.
In fact, a man could have rings on his fingers and bell-boys on his toes all the time if he wanted to do so.
And yet there will be traveling-men who will receive this kind circular and still hang back. Constant contact with a cold, cruel world has made them cynical, and they will hesitate even after Mr. Towel has said that he will improve his house with the money, and even after he has assured us that we need not visit Kansas at all if we will advance the money. This shows that he is not altogether a heartless man. Mr. Towel may be poor, but he is not without consideration for the feelings of people who loan him money.
For my own part I fully believe that Mr. Towel would be willing to fit up his house and put matches in each room if traveling-men throughout the country would respond to this call for assistance.
But the trouble is that the traveling public expect a landlord to take all the risks and advance all the money. This makes the matter of hotel keeping a hazardous one. Mr. Towel asks the guests to become an interested party. Not that he in so many words agrees to divide the profits proportionately at the end of the year with the stockholders, but he is willing to make his hotel larger, and if food does not come up as fast as it goes down--in price, I mean--he will try to make all his guests feel perfectly comfortable while in his house.
Under favorable circumstances the Roller-Towel House would no doubt be thoroughly refitted and refurnished throughout. The little writing-table in each room would have its legs reglued, new wicks would be inserted in the kerosene lamps, the stairs would be dazzled over with soft soap, and the teeth in the comb down in the wash-room would be reset and filled. Numerous changes would be made in the corps de ballet also. The large-handed chambermaid, with the cow-catcher teeth and the red Brazil-nut of hair on the back of her head, would be sent down in the dining-room to recite that little rhetorical burst so often rendered by the elocutionist of the dining-room--the smart Aleckutionist, in the language of the poet, beginning: "Bfsteakprkstk'ncoldts," with a falling inflection that sticks its head into the bosom of the earth and gives its tail a tremolo movement in the air.