Ralph Barbour - Right End Emerson

A very gaudy red automobile whirled up the circling drive that led to the white-pillared portico of the big hotel at Pine Harbor, announced its approach with a wheezy groan of the horn and came to a sudden stop before the steps, a stop so disconcerting to the extreme right-hand occupant of the single seat that he narrowly escaped a head-on collision with the wind-shield. Taking advantage of the impetus that had unseated him, he flung his legs over the door and alighted on the well-kept gravel.

“This car may be sort of cranky when it comes to going , Mac,” he said, “but she sure can stop !”

“Well, she got you here,” chuckled Harley McLeod. “Give the kid a hand with the suit-cases, Jimmy. Pile out, Stan, and I’ll take Matilda around to the garage and give her some oats. You fellows register, and tell the guy at the desk that we want one room and no bath; tell him we had a bath last week. Don’t let him soak you, either. We’ve got four more days of this foreign travel before we get home, and the old sock’s mighty near empty. Something about twelve dollars for the crowd will be pretty near right.”

“Fine,” agreed the third member of the trio, sarcastically, viewing as he spoke the long front of the building and its general air of hauteur and expensiveness. “Twelve dollars apiece is likely to be closer to it. If you want economy, Mac, why the dickens do you pick out the swellest joints on the route?”

“Well,” answered McLeod, glancing rearward to see if the suit-cases had been wrested from their place, “we don’t seem to have much luck that way, and that’s a fact. Gee, that place last night pretty nigh ruined me! You do your best, anyway. All clear, Jimmy? Let go their heads! Back in a minute!” The small red car leaped forward impetuously, dashed down the drive to the road, swerved precipitately to the right and was lost to sight – if not to hearing – beyond a hedge. Stanley Hassell joined Jimmy Austen and together they followed a small uniformed youth, laden with three suit-cases, up the steps, across the wide porch and into the hotel.

It was Stanley who took the pen from the politely extended hand of the clerk and inscribed the names of his party on the register. After each name he added “N. Y. City.” This was less truthful than convenient, for although he and Harley McLeod lived in widely separate sections of that far-stretching metropolis, Jimmy hailed from Elizabeth, New Jersey. But, as Stanley had explained soon after the beginning of their two-weeks tour in Mac’s disguised flivver, “Elizabeth, N. J.” was too long to write. Besides, he added, it wouldn’t be long before Elizabeth became a part of New York, anyway, and there was no harm in anticipating.

“We’d like a room for three,” announced Stanley when he had put down the last dot. “With single beds, if possible, and without a bath. As reasonable a room as you have, please.”

The clerk, a carefully attired gentleman, frowned hopelessly. “I’m afraid we haven’t a room with three single beds,” he said, as he consulted a book. “I can give you a nice large room on the front of the house, however. That has a double bed in it, and I can have a cot put in also. I’m afraid that’s the best – ”

“What’s the price of it?” interrupted Stanley anxiously.

“How long are you staying?”

“Just overnight.”

“Eight dollars, in that case.”

“For the bunch?” inquired Jimmy eagerly.

The clerk shook his head and smiled again, this time commiseratingly. “Eight dollars a day apiece,” he said in his nicely modulated tones. “Our regular price, gentlemen.”

It was Stanley’s turn to do a little head-shaking. “Look here,” he confided earnestly, “you’ve got us wrong. We weren’t thinking of buying the room; we just want to rent it. Now, what about a room on the back of the house? Something about fifteen dollars for the three of us? We aren’t crazy about the view, anyway; besides, we couldn’t see much at night, could we? You just take another peep into the old book there and talk reasonable!”

The gentleman seemed inclined to be haughty for a moment, but Stanley’s smile was captivating and he went back to the book good-naturedly enough. “There’s a room on the third floor,” he announced at last. “It’s rather small, but perhaps it will do. The rate is sixteen-fifty.”

Stanley mused a moment, mentally dividing sixteen dollars and fifty cents by three, and then nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “Guess that’ll have to do.”

“Front! Show the gentlemen to 87!”

“Say,” broke in Jimmy with very evident anxiety, “that includes meals, doesn’t it?”

This time the clerk smiled quite humanly. “Certainly,” he replied. “We are on the American Plan.”

“Idiot!” breathed Stanley as they turned away.

“That’s all right,” replied Jimmy doggedly. “It’s just as well to be sure. Look at the time they held us up for seven dollars apiece and then we found we had to pay extra to eat!”

“That was in a city, you chump,” reminded Stanley. They bade the boy with the luggage wait a minute, but Harley McLeod came hurrying in just then and they began the ascent of the stairs. Harley showed a wrathful countenance.

“Those robbers want three dollars for the car!” he sputtered.

“Three dollars for the car?” echoed Jimmy. “Let ’em have it, I say. It’s worth five, maybe, but three dollars is three dollars, and the room’s costing us sixteen-fifty – ”

“ What! ” exclaimed Harley, standing stock-still on the landing. “Sixteen dollars ?”

“And fifty cents,” confirmed Jimmy cheerfully. “The fifty cents is for the food.”

Harley McLeod stared darkly at Stanley. “You’re a swell little bargainer, you are! Why, that’s five and a half apiece!”

“Well, what of it?” asked Stanley huffily. “We had to pay six and a half last night, didn’t we? Say, if you don’t like the way I do it, why don’t you do it yourself? If you think you can get better terms – ”

“That includes the meals, Mac,” interrupted Jimmy soothingly. “I asked the Duke of Argyle, and he said so.”

“Oh, shut up,” begged Harley. “Gosh, these summer hotels are regular robber dens! All right, I’ve still got a few sous left, and when I’m broke I’ll borrow from Jimmy. Say, where is this room? On the roof?”

“Third floor, sir,” answered the bell-boy. “Nice and cool up here.”

“Ought to be if altitude has anything to do with temperature,” agreed Harley with sarcasm. “What time’s dinner, son?”

“Seven, sir, and runs to eight-thirty.”

“And it’s only a bit after five,” groaned Jimmy. “I’ll tell you one thing, fellows, right now, and that’s this: When the Earl of Buckminster down there charged me five-fifty he committed a fatal error. If I don’t eat five-fifty worth of food at dinner to-night you fellows can throw me in the ocean!”

“Not so horrid,” commented Stanley as they strode after the boy into the apartment. “Small, but sufficient, eh?”

“Do they think we’re going to sleep three in a bed?” demanded Harley, aghast.

“They’re going to put in a cot for you,” said Jimmy comfortingly.

“For me!” Harley viewed him coldly. “How do you attain that condition, Jimmy? What’s the matter with your sleeping on the cot?”

Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t rest well on the things,” he answered. “Maybe Stan had better – ”

“We’ll draw lots,” said Stanley. He tossed a dime to the grinning bell-boy and then pulled three strands from the tattered fringe of the straw matting rug. “Short piece gets the cot. Help yourself, Mac.”