The Dude Wrangler | Page 2

which no hotel
will dispense with lightly.
The frequency with which Mr. Penrose had presumed upon this
knowledge had much to do with Wallie's delight as he had listened to
the encounter.
Dropping back upon his pillow, the young man mildly wondered about
the woman next door to him. She must have come in on the evening
train while he was at the moving pictures, and retired immediately.
Very likely she was, as Mr. Penrose asserted, some acrimonious
spinster, but, at any rate, she had temporarily silenced the rich old
tyrant of whom all the hotel stood in awe.
A second time the ripping sound of yard after yard of calico being
viciously torn broke the night's stillness and, grinning, Wallie waited to
hear what the woman next door was going to do about it. But only a
stranger would have hoped to do anything about it, since to prevent Mr.
Penrose from snoring was a task only a little less hopeless than that of
stopping the roar of the ocean. Guests whom it annoyed had either to
move or get used to it. Sometimes they did the one and sometimes the
other, but always Mr. Penrose, who was the subject of a hundred
complaints a summer, snored on victoriously. The woman next door, of
course, could not know this, so no doubt she had a mistaken notion that
she might either break the old gentleman of his habit or have him
banished to an isolated quarter.
Wallie had not long to wait, for shortly after Mr. Penrose started again
the tattoo on the door was repeated.
In response to a snarl that might have come from a menagerie, she
advised him curtly:
"You're at it again!"

Another angry colloquy followed, and once more Mr. Penrose was
forced to subside for the want of an adequate answer.
All the rest of the night the battle continued at intervals, and by
morning not only Wallie but the entire corridor was interested in the
occupant of the room adjoining his.
Wallie was in the office when the door of the elevator opened with a
clang and Mr. Penrose sprang out of it like a starved lion about to hurl
himself upon a Christian martyr. While his jaws did not drip saliva, the
thin nostrils of his bothersome nose quivered with eagerness and anger.
"I've been coming here for twenty-eight years, haven't I?" he
demanded.
"Twenty-eight this summer," Mr. Cone replied, soothingly.
"In that time I never have put in such a night as last night!"
"Dear me!" The proprietor seemed genuinely disturbed by the
information.
"I could not sleep--I have not closed my eyes--for the battering on my
door of the female in the room adjoining!"
"You astonish me! Let me see----" Mr. Cone whirled the register
around and looked at it. He read aloud:
"Helene Spenceley--Prouty, Wyoming."
Mr. Cone lowered his voice discreetly:
"What was her explanation?"
"She accused me of snoring!" declared Mr. Penrose, furiously. "I heard
the clock strike every hour until morning! Not a wink have I slept--not
a wink, Mr. Cone!"
"We can arrange this satisfactorily, Mr. Penrose," Mr. Cone smiled

conciliatingly. "I have no doubt that Miss--er--Spenceley will gladly
change her room if I ask her. I shall place one equally good at her
disposal---- Ah, I presume this is she--let me introduce you."
Although he would not admit it, Mr. Penrose was quite as astonished as
Wallie at the appearance of the person who stepped from the elevator
and walked to the desk briskly. She was young and good looking and
wore suitable clothes that fitted her; also, while not aggressive, she had
a self-reliant manner which proclaimed the fact that she was
accustomed to looking after her own interests. While she was as far
removed as possible from the person Mr. Penrose had expected to see,
still she was the "female" who had "sassed" him as he had not been
"sassed" since he could remember, and he eyed her belligerently as he
curtly acknowledged the introduction.
"Mr. Penrose, one of our oldest guests in point of residence, tells me
that you have had some little--er--difference----" began Mr. Cone,
affably.
"I had a hellish night!" Mr. Penrose interrupted, savagely. "I hope never
to put in such another."
"I join you in that," replied Miss Spenceley, calmly. "I've never heard
any one snore so horribly--I'd know your snore among a thousand."
"Never mind--we can adjust this matter amicably, I will change your
room to-day, Miss Spenceley," Mr. Cone interposed, hastily. "It hasn't
quite the view, but the furnishings are more luxurious."
"But I don't want to change," Miss Spenceley coolly replied. "It suits
me perfectly."
"I came for quiet and I can't stand that hammering," declared Mr.
Penrose, glaring at her.
"So did I--my nerves--and your snoring bothers