The air in the corridor was rich in reminiscences of yesterday's
dinners, and a bronzed radiator poured a wave of dry heat into Woburn's
face.
The night-clerk, roused by the swinging of the door, sat watching Woburn's
approach with the unexpectant eye of one who has full confidence in his
capacity for digesting surprises. Not that there was anything surprising
in Woburn's appearance; but the night-clerk's callers were given to such
imaginative flights in explaining their luggageless arrival in the small
hours of the morning, that he fared habitually on fictions which would
have staggered a less experienced stomach. The night-clerk, whose
unwrinkled bloom showed that he throve on this high-seasoned diet, had a
fancy for classifying his applicants before they could frame their
explanations.
"This one's been locked out," he said to himself as he mustered Woburn.
Having exercised his powers of divination with his accustomed accuracy he
listened without stirring an eye-lid to Woburn's statement; merely
replying, when the latter asked the price of a room, "Two-fifty."
"Very well," said Woburn, pushing the money under the brass lattice, "I'll
go up at once; and I want to be called at seven."
To this the night-clerk proffered no reply, but stretching out his hand to
press an electric button, returned apathetically to the perusal of the
_Police Gazette_. His summons was answered by the appearance of a man in
shirt-sleeves, whose rumpled head indicated that he had recently risen
from some kind of makeshift repose; to him the night-clerk tossed a key,
with the brief comment, "Ninety-seven;" and the man, after a sleepy glance
at Woburn, turned on his heel and lounged toward the staircase at the back
of the corridor.
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