Part 19 (1/2)
”Good!” said I. ”Let's have it.”
He handed it to me, and I glanced at it. _It was a copy of Jerome K.
Jerome's ”Three Men in a Boat, not to Mention the Dog!”_
”No flattery at all,” said I, my growing conceit falling back to par.
”I'm glad you like it.”
And then for the first and only time in my life I committed forgery. I took the book to a writing table near at hand, and inscribed the flyleaf with ”Appreciatively yours, Jerome K. Jerome.” And as I left the hotel the last sight that greeted my eyes was my kindly deputy a.s.sistant host studying that inscription with a look of extreme bewilderment on his screwed-up countenance.
Apropos of this incident it is rather curious how frequently my name and that of Jerome K. Jerome have been confounded. I have always considered it a compliment, and I sincerely hope Jerome himself will not mind it. I suppose the ident.i.ty of our initials J. K. is responsible for it, and possibly the fact also that Jerome's ”Three Men in a Boat” and my own ”House-Boat on the Styx” were published at about the same time. One of the most amusing incidents based upon this confusion of ident.i.ty occurred in California last spring. I was spending Easter Sunday at that remarkable hostelry, the Mission Inn at Riverside, feeling that in some way despite of my desserts I had got into heaven, and quite convinced that I could stand an eternity of it if the particular atmosphere of that wonderful Sunday were typical of life there. The inspiring Easter sunrise service on Mount Rubidaux was over, and I was resting comfortably in the office when a young woman paused at my side, and said,
”You will excuse me for speaking to you, sir, but your face bothers me.”
”I am very sorry, Madame,” said I, ”but it has bothered me too for over fifty years.”
”Oh, I don't mean that way,” she answered quickly. ”I mean that I can't place it.”
”Well,” said I, trying to smile, ”you really don't have to. It is already located.”
”But I don't know where I have seen it before,” she pleaded.
”Nor do I,” said I, ”but I think I can rea.s.sure you on that point.
Knowing myself as I do I can a.s.sure you that it must have been in a perfectly respectable place.”
”I wish you would stop fooling,” she retorted, a trifle impatiently. ”I want to know who you are. You see I'm of a rather nervous temperament, and when I see a familiar face and cannot remember the name of the individual who--er--who goes with it, sometimes it keeps me awake all night.”
”It would be too bad to have that happen,” said I, ”and inasmuch as I am not at all ashamed of my name I shall be delighted to tell you what it is. It is Bangs--John Kendrick Bangs.”
”Oh--I know,” she cried, her perplexity fading away, ”You are the man who wrote 'Three Men in a Boat.'”
And the dear lady seemed to be so pleased over the honor of meeting so distinguished an author that I really hadn't the heart to undeceive her.
I have always thought of my young friend the room-clerk far more kindly than of another New Jersey host whose airy nonchalance in what was to me a moment of some seriousness struck me as being almost arctic in its frigid non-acceptance of responsibility for untoward conditions. I had put up overnight in his jerry-built hostelry, and all had gone well until breakfast time. I was seated at table enjoying my frugal repast, when without warning from anybody I found myself the sudden recipient of a heavy blow on the top of my head, and upon emerging from the rather dazed psychological condition in which the blow left me discovered that I was covered from head to foot with plaster, and that my poor but honest poached egg had become a scrambled one, mixed with the impalpable dust of a shattered bit of molding.
A glance heavenward showed whence my trouble had come. A section of the ceiling about four feet square had come loose, and had landed upon me.
I could think of no better way to voice my protest against such an intolerable intrusion upon my rights of privacy at mealtimes than by giving the hotel manager an object lesson then and there of what was going on under his roof. So I rose from the table and walked directly to the office just as I was.
”Great Scott!” said my host, as I loomed up before him like a glorified ash heap. ”What's happened to you?”
”A part of your condemned old ceiling has fallen on me, that's what!” I sputtered somewhat wrathfully.
”Oh, that's it, eh?” he replied, with a smiling grace which I hardly appreciated at the time. ”Well, we don't do that for everybody, Mr.
Bangs,” he added; ”_but seeing it's you we won't make any extra charge_.”
I thanked him for his consideration. ”I'd like to buy this hotel,” I added.