The Grand Babylon Hotel | Page 8

a higher figure.'
'I will put one question to you, Mr Babylon,' said the millionaire. 'What have your profits
averaged during the last four years?'
'Thirty-four thousand pounds per annum.'
'I buy,' said Theodore Racksole, smiling contentedly; 'and we will, if you please,
exchange contract-letters on the spot.'
'You come quickly to a resolution, Mr Racksole. But perhaps you have been considering
this question for a long time?'
'On the contrary,' Racksole looked at his watch, 'I have been considering it for six
minutes.'
Felix Babylon bowed, as one thoroughly accustomed to eccentricity of wealth.
'The beauty of being well-known,' Racksole continued, 'is that you needn't trouble about
preliminary explanations. You, Mr Babylon, probably know all about me. I know a good
deal about you. We can take each other for granted without reference. Really, it is as
simple to buy an hotel or a railroad as it is to buy a watch, provided one is equal to the
transaction.'
'Precisely,' agreed Mr Babylon smiling. 'Shall we draw up the little informal contract?
There are details to be thought of. But it occurs to me that you cannot have dined yet, and
might prefer to deal with minor questions after dinner.'

'I have not dined,' said the millionaire, with emphasis, 'and in that connexion will you do
me a favour? Will you send for Mr Rocco?'
'You wish to see him, naturally.'
'I do,' said the millionaire, and added, 'about my dinner.'
'Rocco is a great man,' murmured Mr Babylon as he touched the bell, ignoring the last
words. 'My compliments to Mr Rocco,' he said to the page who answered his summons,
'and if it is quite convenient I should be glad to see him here for a moment.'
'What do you give Rocco?' Racksole inquired.
'Two thousand a year and the treatment of an Ambassador.'
'I shall give him the treatment of an Ambassador and three thousand.'
'You will be wise,' said Felix Babylon.
At that moment Rocco came into the room, very softly - a man of forty, thin, with long,
thin hands, and an inordinately long brown silky moustache.
'Rocco,' said Felix Babylon, 'let me introduce Mr Theodore Racksole, of New York.'
'Sharmed,' said Rocco, bowing. 'Ze - ze, vat you call it, millionaire?'
'Exactly,' Racksole put in, and continued quickly: 'Mr Rocco, I wish to acquaint you
before any other person with the fact that I have purchased the Grand Babylon Hotel. If
you think well to afford me the privilege of retaining your services I shall be happy to
offer you a remuneration of three thousand a year.'
'Tree, you said?'
'Three.'
'Sharmed.'
'And now, Mr Rocco, will you oblige me very much by ordering a plain beefsteak and a
bottle of Bass to be served by Jules - I particularly desire Jules - at table No. 17 in the
dining-room in ten minutes from now? And will you do me the honour of lunching with
me to-morrow?'
Mr Rocco gasped, bowed, muttered something in French, and departed.
Five minutes later the buyer and seller of the Grand Babylon Hotel had each signed a curt
document, scribbled out on the hotel note-paper. Felix Babylon asked no questions, and it
was this heroic absence of curiosity, of surprise on his part, that more than anything else
impressed Theodore Racksole. How many hotel proprietors in the world, Racksole asked
himself, would have let that beef-steak and Bass go by without a word of comment.

'From what date do you wish the purchase to take effect?' asked Babylon.
'Oh,' said Racksole lightly, 'it doesn't matter. Shall we say from to-night?'
'As you will. I have long wished to retire. And now that the moment has come - and so
dramatically - I am ready. I shall return to Switzerland. One cannot spend much money
there, but it is my native land. I shall be the richest man in Switzerland.' He smiled with a
kind of sad amusement.
'I suppose you are fairly well off?' said Racksole, in that easy familiar style of his, as
though the idea had just occurred to him.
'Besides what I shall receive from you, I have half a million invested.'
'Then you will be nearly a millionaire?'
Felix Babylon nodded.
'I congratulate you, my dear sir,' said Racksole, in the tone of a judge addressing a
newly-admitted barrister. 'Nine hundred thousand pounds, expressed in francs, will sound
very nice - in Switzerland.'
'Of course to you, Mr Racksole, such a sum would be poverty. Now if one might guess at
your own wealth?' Felix Babylon was imitating the other's freedom.
'I do not know, to five millions or so, what I am worth,' said Racksole, with sincerity, his
tone indicating that he would have been glad to give the information if it were in