Affair in Araby | Page 5

trust, through and
through--boys who are clean, and honest, and worth loving. If you must
lose your hearts--and I suppose it's inevitable, some day--please do me
the favour of choosing two of them. I'll sleep better at night and breathe
easier by day!"

CHAPTER II
The Rôle of Good Angel
Rushford waved them good-bye from the door as they sallied forth into

the bright sunlight, paused a moment to look after them admiringly,
and then turned slowly back into the hotel, smiling softly to himself. He
sauntered through the deserted vestibule, and its emptiness struck him
as it had never done before.
"Really," he said to himself, "we seem to be the only patrons the house
has got. I'll have to look over my bill."
He went on to the desk and demanded his letters of the boy in
resplendent uniform who presided there.
"There are none, monsieur," answered that individual, blandly.
"What!" cried Rushford, his smile vanished in an instant. "Are you
sure?"
The boy answered with a shrug and a significant gesture toward the
letter-rack on the wall. It was visibly, incontestably empty.
Rushford turned away in disgust.
"Those fellows at the office are assuming altogether too much
responsibility," he muttered savagely, as he wandered on into the
smoking-room. "I told them I didn't want to be bothered with little
things, but I certainly expected to hear from them once in a while. If I
don't look out, they'll reduce me to the status of a rubber stamp! I'll
have to stir them up," and he gloomily extracted from the rack the
newly-arrived, two-days-old London paper, brought by the little rickety
train which struggled through at uncertain and infrequent intervals from
Zunderburg to Weet-sur-Mer, lighted a fresh cigar, and sat down to a
perusal of the news.
He proceeded in the most leisurely manner, for he knew that he had
plenty of time. Indeed, the paper once finished, the remainder of the
day would stretch before him an empty wilderness--a waste as
monotonous and bare as the beach he had grown so weary of gazing at.
So he gave careful and minute attention to every item. He was in the
midst of a long and wholly uninteresting account of a charity bazaar,

which the Princess of Wales had opened, and where the Duchess of
Blank-Blank had made a tremendous hit and much money for a worthy
cause, by selling her kisses for a guinea each, when his attention was
attracted by a discreet shuffling of feet on the floor beside his chair. He
looked up to see standing there the little fat Alsatian-German-French
proprietor of the hotel.
"Why, hello, Pelletan," he said. "Want to speak to me?"
"Eef monsieur please," and Pelletan rubbed his chubby hands together
in visible embarrassment.
"All right; sit down."
Monsieur Pelletan coughed deprecatingly and deposited his plump
body on the extreme edge of a chair. It was easy to see that he was
much depressed--his usually rosy cheeks hung flaccid, his mustachios
drooped limply, his little black eyes were suffused and needed frequent
wiping--a service performed by a hand that was none too steady.
"Eet iss a matter of pusiness, monsieur," he began, falteringly. "You
haf perhaps perceive' t'at our custom hass fallen off."
Rushford glanced about the deserted smoking-room.
"No," he said; "I haven't seen any to fall off. I've been wondering how
you managed to pay out."
"Ah, monsieur," cried Pelletan, wringing his hands, "t'at iss eet--I haf
been paying out unt paying out until t'e las' franc iss gone. I wass at no
time reech, monsieur; at t'is moment I am in ruins!"
And, indeed, he looked the part.
"You mean you'll have to shut up shop?" inquired Rushford.
"Eet preaks my heart to say eet, monsieur; but I fear eet will come to
t'at, unless--"

"Unless what?" asked Rushford, eyeing him as he hesitated.
"Unless I shall pe able to interes' monsieur--"
Rushford grunted and stared out of the window at the dunes, puffing
his cigar meditatively. He thought of the comfortable bed, of the
admirable cuisine--he would hate to give them up. It would mean going
to the other hotel, and the mere idea made him shiver. Anything but
that!
His host watched him in an agony of apprehension.
"What does it cost a day to run this shebang?" asked the American at
last.
Monsieur Pelletan, with feverish haste, produced a paper from his
pocket.
"I haf anticipate' monsieur's question; t'is statement will show heem."
Rushford took it and glanced at the total.
"Hmmmm. Four hundred and eighty francs--say a hundred dollars."
"T'at, monsieur," explained Pelletan, "iss based upon our present
custom. As pusiness increase', so do t'e expense increase."
"Of course."
"But not in t'e same ratio as t'e receipts. A full house wins so much as
six hundret