Gullible's Travels - (2)

"He gets poor pay and he does poor work," says the burglar. "When I press clo'es I press 'em right."
    "Well," I says, "the tailor on Sixty-third satisfies us. Suppose you don't do your best this time, but just give us seventy cents' worth."
    But they wasn't no chance for a bargain. He'd been in the business so long he'd become hardened and lost all regard for his fellow men.
    The Missus slept, but I didn't. Instead, I done a few problems in arithmetic. Outside o' what she'd gave up for postcards and stamps in Jacksonville, I'd spent two bucks for our lunch, about two more for my shave and my refreshments, one for a rough ride in a bus, one more for gettin' our trunk and grips carried round, two for havin' the clo'es pressed, and about half a buck in tips to people that I wouldn't never see again. Somewheres near nine dollars a day, not countin' no hotel bill, and over two weeks of it yet to come!
    Oh, you rummy game at home, at half a cent a point!
    When our clo'es come back I woke her up and give her the figures.
    "But to-day's an exception," she says. "After this our meals will be included in the hotel bill and we won't need to get our suits pressed only once a week and you'll be shavin' yourself and they won't be no bus fare when we're stayin' in one place. Besides, we can practise economy all spring and all summer."
    "I guess we need the practise," I says.
    "And if you're goin' to crab all the time about expenses," says she, "I'll wish we had of stayed home."
    "That'll make it unanimous," says I.
    Then she begin sobbin' about how I'd spoiled the trip and I had to promise I wouldn't think no more o' what we were spendin'. I might just as well of promised to not worry when the White Sox lost or when I'd forgot to come home to supper.
    We went in the dinin'-room about six-thirty and was showed to a table where they was another couple settin'. They was husband and wife, I guess, but I don't know which was which. She was wieldin' the pencil and writin' down their order.
    "I guess I'll have clams," he says.
    "They disagreed with you last night," says she.
    "All right," he says. "I won't try 'em. Give me cream-o'-tomato soup."
    "You don't like tomatoes," she says.
    "Well, I won't have no soup," says he. "A little o' the blue-fish."
    "The blue-fish wasn't no good at noon," she says. "You better try the bass."
    "All right, make it bass," he says. "And them sweet-breads and a little roast beef and sweet potatoes and peas and vanilla ice-cream and coffee."
    "You wouldn't touch sweet-breads at home," says she, "and you can't tell what they'll be in a hotel."
    "All right, cut out the sweet-breads," he says.
    "I should think you'd have the stewed chicken," she says, "and leave out the roast beef."
    "Stewed chicken it is," says he.
    "Stewed chicken and mashed potatoes and string beans and buttered toast and coffee. Will that suit you?"
    "Sure!" he says, and she give the slip to the waiter.
    George looked at it long enough to of read it three times if he could of read it once and then went out in the kitchen and got a trayful o' whatever was handy.
    But the poor guy didn't get more'n a taste of anything. She was watchin' him like a hawk, and no sooner would he delve into one victual than she'd yank the dish away from him and tell him to remember that health was more important than temporary happiness. I felt so sorry for him that I couldn't enjoy my own repast and I told the Wife that we'd have our breakfast apart from that stricken soul if I had to carry the case to old Al Cazar himself.
    In the evenin' we strolled acrost the street to the Ponce--that's supposed to be even sweller yet than where we were stoppin' at. We walked all over the place without recognizin' nobody from our set. I finally warned the Missus that if we didn't duck back to our room I'd probably have a heart attack from excitement; but she'd read in her Florida guide that the decorations and pitchers was worth goin' miles to see, so we had to stand in front o' them for a couple hours and try to keep awake. Four or five o' them was thrillers, at that. Their names was Adventure, Discovery, Contest, and so on, but what they all should of been called was Lady Who Had Mislaid Her Clo'es.
    The hotel's named after the fella that built it. He come from Spain and they say he was huntin' for some water that if he'd drunk it he'd feel young. I don't see myself how you could expect to feel young on water. But, anyway, he'd heard that this here kind o' water could be found in St. Augustine, and when he couldn't find it he went into the hotel business and got even with the United States by chargin' five dollars a day and up for a room.
    Sunday mornin' we went in to breakfast early and I ast the head waiter if we could set at another table where they wasn't no convalescent and his mate. At the same time I give the said head waiter somethin' that spoke louder than words. We was showed to a place way acrost the room from where we'd been the night before. It was a table for six, but the other four didn't come into our life till that night at supper.
    Meanw'ile we went sight-seein'. We visited Fort Marion, that'd be a great protection against the Germans, provided they fought with paper wads. We seen the city gate and the cathedral and the slave market, and then we took the boat over to Anastasia Island, that the ocean's on the other side of it. This trip made me homesick, because the people that was along with us on the boat looked just like the ones we'd often went with to Michigan City on the Fourth o' July. The boat landed on the bay side o' the island and from there we was drug over to the ocean side on a horse car, the horse walkin' to one side o' the car instead of in front, so's he wouldn't get ran over.
    We stuck on the beach till dinner-time and then took the chariot back to the pavilion on the bay side, where a whole family served the meal and their pigs put on a cabaret. It was the best meal I had in dear old Dixie--fresh oysters and chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and fish and pie. And they charged two bits a plate.
    "Goodness gracious!" says the Missus, when I told her the price. "This is certainly reasonable. I wonder how it happens."
    "Well," I says, "the family was probably washed up here by the tide and don't know they're in Florida."
    When we got back to the hotel they was only just time to clean up and go down to supper. We hadn't no sooner got seated when our table companions breezed in. It was a man about forty-five, that looked like he'd made his money in express and general haulin', and he had his wife along and both their mother-in-laws. The shirt he had on was the one he'd started from home with, if he lived in Yokohama. His womenfolks wore mournin' with a touch o' gravy here and there.
    "You order for us, Jake," says one o' the ladies.
    So Jake grabbed the bill o' fare and his wife took the slip and pencil and waited for the dictation.
    "Let's see," he says. "How about oyster cocktail?"
    "Yes," says the three Mrs. Black.
    "Four oyster cocktails, then," says Jake, "and four orders o' blue-points."
    "The oysters is nice, too," says I.
    They all give me a cordial smile and the ice was broke.
    "Everything's good here," says Jake.
    "I bet you know," I says.
    He seemed pleased at the compliment and went on dictatin'.
    "Four chicken soups with rice," he says, "and four o' the blue-fish and four veal chops breaded and four roast chicken and four boiled potatoes--"
    But it seemed his wife would rather have sweet potatoes.
    "All right," says Jake; "four boiled potatoes and four sweets. And chicken salad and some o' that tapioca puddin' and ice-cream and tea. Is that satisfactory?"
    "Fine!" says one o' the mother-in-laws.
    "Are you goin' to stay long?" says Mrs. Jake to my Missus.
    The party addressed didn't look very clubby, but she was too polite to pull the cut direct.
    "We leave to-morrow night," she says.
    Nobody ast her where we was goin'.
    "We leave for Palm Beach," she says.
    "That's a nice place, I guess," says one o' the old ones. "More people goes there than comes here. It ain't so expensive there, I guess."
    "You're some guesser," says the Missus and freezes up.
    I ast Jake if he'd been to Florida before.
    "No," he says; "this is our first trip, but we're makin' up for lost time. We're seein' all they is to see and havin' everything the best."
    "You're havin' everything, all right," I says, "but I don't know if it's the best or not. How long have you been here?"
    "A week to-morrow," says he. "And we stay another week and then go to Ormond."
    "Are you standin' the trip O. K.?" I ast him.
    "Well," he says, "I don't feel quite as good as when we first come."
    "Kind o' logy?" I says.
    "Yes; kind o' heavy," says Jake.
    "I know what you ought to do," says I. "You ought to go to a European plan hotel."
    "Not w'ile this war's on," he says, "and besides, my mother's a poor sailor."
    "Yes," says his mother; "I'm a very poor sailor."
    "Jake's mother can't stand the water," says Mrs. Jake.
    So I begun to believe that Jake's wife's mother-in-law was a total failure as a jolly tar.
    Social intercourse was put an end to when the waiter staggered in with their order and our'n. The Missus seemed to of lost her appetite and just set there lookin' grouchy and tappin' her fingers on the table-cloth and actin' like she was in a hurry to get away. I didn't eat much, neither. It was more fun watchin'.
    "Well," I says, when we was out in the lobby, "we finally got acquainted with some real people."
    "Real people!" says the Missus, curlin' her lip. "What did you talk to 'em for?"
    "I couldn't resist," I says. "Anybody that'd order four oyster cocktails and four rounds o' blue-points is worth knowin'."
    "Well," she says, "if they're there when we go in to-morrow mornin' we'll get our table changed again or you can eat with 'em alone."
    But they was absent from the breakfast board.
    "They're probably stayin' in bed to-day to get their clo'es washed," says the Missus.
    "Or maybe they're sick," I says. "A change of oysters affects some people."
    I was for goin' over to the island again and gettin' another o' them quarter banquets, but the program was for us to walk round town all mornin' and take a ride in the afternoon.
    First, we went to St. George Street and visited the oldest house in the United States. Then we went to Hospital Street and seen the oldest house in the United States. Then we turned the corner and went down St. Francis Street and inspected the oldest house in the United States. Then we dropped into a soda fountain and I had an egg phosphate, made from the oldest egg in the Western Hemisphere. We passed up lunch and got into a carriage drawn by the oldest horse in Florida, and we rode through the country all afternoon and the driver told us some o' the oldest jokes in the book. He felt it was only fair to give his customers a good time when he was chargin' a dollar an hour, and he had his gags rehearsed so's he could tell the same one a thousand times and never change a word. And the horse knowed where the point come in every one and stopped to laugh.
    We done our packin' before supper, and by the time we got to our table Jake and the mourners was through and gone. We didn't have to ask the waiter if they'd been there. He was perspirin' like an evangelist.
    After supper we said good-by to the night clerk and twenty-two bucks. Then we bought ourself another ride in the motor-bus and landed at the station ten minutes before train-time; so we only had an hour to wait for the train.
    Say, I don't know how many stations they is between New York and San Francisco, but they's twice as many between St. Augustine and Palm Beach. And our train stopped twice and started twice at every one. I give up tryin' to sleep and looked out the window, amusin' myself by readin' the names o' the different stops. The only one that expressed my sentiments was Eau Gallie. We was an hour and a half late pullin' out o' that joint and I figured we'd be two hours to the bad gettin' into our destination. But the guy that made out the time-table must of had the engineer down pat, because when we went acrost the bridge over Lake Worth and landed at the Poinciana depot, we was ten minutes ahead o' time.
    They was about two dozen uniformed Ephs on the job to meet us. And when I seen 'em all grab for our baggage with one hand and hold the other out, face up, I knowed why they called it Palm Beach.
    IV
    The Poinciana station's a couple hundred yards from one end o' the hotel, and that means it's close to five miles from the clerk's desk. By the time we'd registered and been gave our key and marathoned another five miles or so to where our room was located at, I was about ready for the inquest. But the Missus was full o' pep and wild to get down to breakfast and look over our stable mates. She says we would eat without changin' our clo'es; people'd forgive us for not dressin' up on account o' just gettin' there. W'ile she was lookin' out the window at the royal palms and buzzards, I moseyed round the room inspectin' where the different doors led to. Pretty near the first one I opened went into a private bath.
    "Here," I says; "they've give us the wrong room."
    Then my wife seen it and begin to squeal.
    "Goody!" she says. "We've got a bath! We've got a bath!"
    "But," says I, "they promised we wouldn't have none. It must be a mistake."
    "Never you mind about a mistake," she says. "This is our room and they can't chase us out of it."
    "We'll chase ourself out," says I. "Rooms with a bath is fifteen and sixteen dollars and up. Rooms without no bath is bad enough."
    "We'll keep this room or I won't stay here," she says.
    "All right, you win," I says; but I didn't mean it.
    I made her set in the lobby down-stairs w'ile I went to the clerk pretendin' that I had to see about our trunk.
    "Say," I says to him, "you've made a bad mistake. You told your man in Chicago that we couldn't have no room with a bath, and now you've give us one."
    "You're lucky," he says. "A party who had a bath ordered for these two weeks canceled their reservation and now you've got it."
    "Lucky, am I?" I says. "And how much is the luck goin' to cost me?"
    "It'll be seventeen dollars per day for that room," he says, and turned away to hide a blush.
    I went back to the Wife.
    "Do you know what we're payin' for that room?" I says. "We're payin' seventeen dollars."
    "Well," she says, "our meals is throwed in."
    "Yes," says I, "and the hotel furnishes a key."
    "You promised in St. Augustine," she says, "that you wouldn't worry no more about expenses."
    Well, rather than make a scene in front o' the bellhops and the few millionaires that was able to be about at that hour o' the mornin', I just says "All right!" and led her into the dinin'-room.
    The head waiter met us at the door and turned us over to his assistant. Then some more assistants took hold of us one at a time and we was relayed to a beautiful spot next door to the kitchen and bounded on all sides by posts and pillars. It was all right for me, but a whole lot too private for the Missus; so I had to call the fella that had been our pacemaker on the last lap.
    "We don't like this table," I says.
    "It's the only one I can give you," he says.
    I slipped him half a buck.
    "Come to think of it," he says, "I believe they's one I forgot all about."
    And he moved us way up near the middle o' the place.
    Say, you ought to seen that dinin'-room! From one end of it to the other is a toll call, and if a man that was settin' at the table farthest from the kitchen ordered roast lamb he'd get mutton. At that, they was crowded for fair and it kept the head waiters hustlin' to find trough space for one and all.
    It was round nine o'clock when we put in our modest order for orange juice, oatmeal, liver and bacon, and cakes and coffee, and a quarter to ten or so when our waiter returned from the nearest orange grove with Exhibit A. We amused ourself meanw'ile by givin' our neighbors the once over and wonderin' which o' them was goin' to pal with us. As far as I could tell from the glances we received, they wasn't no immediate danger of us bein' annoyed by attentions.
    They was only a few womenfolks on deck and they was dressed pretty quiet; so quiet that the Missus was scared she'd shock 'em with the sport skirt she'd bought in Chi. Later on in the day, when the girls come out for their dress parade, the Missus' costume made about as much noise as eatin' marshmallows in a foundry.
    After breakfast we went to the room for a change o' raiment. I put on my white trousers and wished to heaven that the sun'd go under a cloud till I got used to tellin' people without words just where my linen began and I left off. The rest o' my outfit was white shoes that hurt, and white sox, and a two-dollar silk shirt that showed up a zebra, and a red tie and a soft collar and a blue coat. The Missus wore a sport suit that I won't try and describe--you'll probably see it on her sometime in the next five years.
    We went down-stairs again and out on the porch, where some o' the old birds was takin' a sun bath.
    "Where now?" I says.
    "The beach, o' course," says the Missus.
    "Where is it at?" I ast her.
    "I suppose," she says, "that we'll find it somewheres near the ocean."
    "I don't believe you can stand this climate," says I.
    "The ocean," she says, "must be down at the end o' that avenue, where most everybody seems to be headed."
    "Havin' went to our room and back twice, I don't feel like another five-mile hike," I says.
    "It ain't no five miles," she says; "but let's ride, anyway."
    "Come on," says I, pointin' to a street-car that was standin' in the middle o' the avenue.
    "Oh, no," she says. "I've watched and found out that the real people takes them funny-lookin' wheel chairs."
    I was wonderin' what she meant when one o' them pretty near run over us. It was part bicycle, part go-cart and part African. In the one we dodged they was room for one passenger, but some o' them carried two.
    "I wonder what they'd soak us for the trip," I says.
    "Not more'n a dime, I don't believe," says the Missus.
    But when we'd hired one and been w'isked down under the palms and past the golf field to the bath-house, we was obliged to part with fifty cents legal and tender.
    "I feel much refreshed," I says. "I believe when it comes time to go back I'll be able to walk."
    The bath-house is acrost the street from the other hotel, the Breakers, that the man had told us was full for the season. Both buildin's fronts on the ocean; and, boy, it's some ocean! I bet they's fish in there that never seen each other!
    "Oh, let's go bathin' right away!" says the Missus.
    "Our suits is up to the other beanery," says I, and I was glad of it. They wasn't nothin' temptin' to me about them man-eatin' waves.
    But the Wife's a persistent cuss.
    "We won't go to-day," she says, "but we'll go in the bath-house and get some rooms for to-morrow."
    The bath-house porch was a ringer for the Follies. Here and down on the beach was where you seen the costumes at this time o' day. I was so busy rubberin' that I passed the entrance door three times without noticin' it. From the top o' their heads to the bottom o' their feet the girls was a mess o' colors. They wasn't no two dressed alike and if any one o' them had of walked down State Street we'd of had an epidemic o' stiff neck to contend with in Chi. Finally the Missus grabbed me and hauled me into the office.
    "Two private rooms," she says to the clerk. "One lady and one gent."
    "Five dollars a week apiece," he says. "But we're all filled up."
    "You ought to be all locked up!" I says.
    "Will you have anything open to-morrow?" ast the Missus.
    "I think I can fix you then," he says.
    "What do we get for the five?" I ast him.
    "Private room and we take care o' your bathin' suit," says he.
    "How much if you don't take care o' the suit?" I ast him. "My suit's been gettin' along fine with very little care."
    "Five dollars a week apiece," he says, "and if you want the rooms you better take 'em, because they're in big demand."
    By the time we'd closed this grand bargain, everybody'd moved offen the porch and down to the water, where a couple dozen o' them went in for a swim and the rest set and watched. They was a long row o' chairs on the beach for spectators and we was just goin' to flop into two o' them when another bandit come up and told us it'd cost a dime apiece per hour.
    "We're goin' to be here two weeks," I says. "Will you sell us two chairs?"
    He wasn't in no comical mood, so we sunk down on the sand and seen the show from there. We had plenty o' company that preferred these kind o' seats free to the chairs at ten cents a whack.
    Besides the people that was in the water gettin' knocked down by the waves and pretendin' like they enjoyed it, about half o' the gang on the sand was wearin' bathin' suits just to be clubby. You could tell by lookin' at the suits that they hadn't never been wet and wasn't intended for no such ridic'lous purpose. I wisht I could describe 'em to you, but it'd take a female to do it right.
    One little girl, either fourteen or twenty-four, had white silk slippers and sox that come pretty near up to her ankles, and from there to her knees it was just plain Nature. Northbound from her knees was a pair o' bicycle trousers that disappeared when they come to the bottom of her Mother Hubbard. This here garment was a thing without no neck or sleeves that begin bulgin' at the top and spread out gradual all the way down, like a croquette. To top her off, she had a jockey cap; and--believe me--I'd of played her mount acrost the board. They was plenty o' class in the field with her, but nothin' that approached her speed. Later on I seen her several times round the hotel, wearin' somethin' near the same outfit, without the jockey cap and with longer croquettes.
    We set there in the sand till people begun to get up and leave. Then we trailed along back o' them to the Breakers' porch, where they was music to dance and stuff to inhale.
    "We'll grab a table," I says to the Missus. "I'm dyin' o' thirst."
    But I was allowed to keep on dyin'.
    "I can serve you somethin' soft," says the waiter.
    "I'll bet you can't!" I says.
    "You ain't got no locker here?" he says.
    "What do you mean--locker?" I ast him.
    "It's the locker liquor law," he says. "We can serve you a drink if you own your own bottles."
    "I'd just as soon own a bottle," I says. "I'll become the proprietor of a bottle o' beer."
    "It'll take three or four hours to get it for you," he says, "and you'd have to order it through the order desk. If you're stoppin' at one o' the hotels and want a drink once in a w'ile, you better get busy and put in an order."
    So I had to watch the Missus put away a glass of orange juice that cost forty cents and was just the same size as they give us for breakfast free for nothin'. And, not havin' had nothin' to make me forget that my feet hurt, I was obliged to pay another four bits for an Afromobile to cart us back to our own boardin' house.