The Carpet From Bagdad | Page 6

diplomacy, he brought into being the accustomed salutatory smile and
inquired if the gentleman had written ahead for reservation, otherwise it
would not be possible to accommodate him.
"I telegraphed," crisply.
"The name, if you please?"
"Ryanne; spelled R-y-a double-n e. Have you ever been in County
Clare?"
"No, sir." The manager added a question with the uplift of his
eyebrows.
"Well," was the enlightening answer, "you pronounce it as they do

there."
The manager scanned the little slip of paper in his hand. "Ah, yes; we
have reserved a room for you, sir. The French style rather confused
me." This was not offered in irony, or sarcasm, or satire; mining in a
Swiss brain for the saving grace of humor is about as remunerative as
the extraction of gold from sea-water. Nevertheless, the Swiss has the
talent of swiftly subtracting from a confusion of ideas one point of
illumination: there was a quality to the stranger's tone that decided him
favorably. It was the voice of a man in the habit of being obeyed; and
in these days it was the power of money alone that obtained obedience
to any man. Beyond this, the same nebulous cogitation that had
subdued the Arabs outside acted likewise upon him. Here was a
brother.
"Mail?"
"I will see, sir." The manager summoned a porter. "Room 208."
The porter caught up the somewhat collapsed kit-bag, which had in all
evidence received some rough usage in its time, and reached toward the
roll. Mr. Ryanne interposed.
"I will see to that, my man," tersely.
"Yes, sir."
"Where is your guest-list?" demanded Mr. Ryanne of the manager.
"The head-porter's bureau, sir. I will see if you have any mail," The
manager passed into his own bureau. It was rather difficult to tell
whether this man was an American or an Englishman. His accent was
western, but his manner was decidedly British. At any rate, that tone
and carriage must be bastioned by good English sovereigns, or for once
his judgment was at fault.
The porter dashed up-stairs. Mr. Ryanne, his bundle still snug under his
arm, sauntered over to the head-porter's bureau and ran his glance up

and down the columns of visiting-cards. Once he nodded with approval,
and again he smiled, having discovered that which sent a ripple across
his sleeping sense of amusement. Major Callahan, room 206; Fortune
Chedsoye, 205; George P. A. Jones, 210.
"Hm! the Major smells of County Antrim and the finest whisky in all
the isle. Fortune Chedsoye; that is a pleasing name; tinkling brooks, the
waving green grasses in the meadows, the kine in the water, the fleeting
shadows under the oaks; a pastoral, a bucolic name. To claim Fortune
for mine own; a happy thought."
As he uttered these poesy expressions aloud, in a voice low and not
unpleasing, for all that it was bantering, the head-porter stared at him
with mingling doubt and alarm; and as if to pronounce these emotions
mutely for the benefit of the other, he permitted his eyes to open their
widest.
"Tut, tut; that's all right, porter. I am cursed with the habit of speaking
my inmost thoughts. Some persons are afflicted with insomnia; some
fall asleep in church; I think orally. Beastly habit, eh?"
The porter then understood that he was dealing not with a species of
mild lunacy, but with that kind of light-hearted cynicism upon which
the world (as porters know it) had set its approving seal. In brief, he
smiled faintly; and if he had any pleasantry to pass in turn, the
approach of the manager, now clothed metaphorically in deferentialism,
relegated it to the limbo of things thought but left unsaid.
"Here is a letter for you, Mr. Ryanne. Have you any more luggage?"
"No." Mr. Ryanne smiled. "Shall I pay for my room in advance?"
"Oh, no, sir!" Ten years ago the manager would have blushed at having
been so misunderstood. "Your room is 208."
"Will you have a boy show me the way?"
"I shall myself attend to that. If the room is not what you wish it may

be exchanged."
"The room is the one I telegraphed for. I am superstitious to a degree.
On three boats I have had fine state-rooms numbered 208. Twice the
number of my hotel room has been the same. On the last voyage there
were 208 passengers, and the captain had made 208 voyages on the
Mediterranean."
"Quite a coincident."
"Ah, if roulette could be played with such a certainty."
Mr. Ryanne sighed, hitched up his bundle, which, being heavy, was
beginning to wear upon his arm, and signified to the manager to lead
the way.
As they vanished round the corner to the lift, the head-porter studied
the guest-list. He had looked over it a dozen times that day,