The Hotel incontinently changed its name to commemorate an event which in fact never took place. Shortly afterwards, however, a Balkan Tsar—also a Hohenzollern—happily did come, and was subjected by Mr. Trupp to the operation prepared for the head of his family.
But if the Hotel changed its name, its reputation remained the same and even grew. In Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Buda-Pesth, men talked of it; and even in India native princes whispered risqué stories about it to their Prime Ministers at the Council Table.
Wherever men spoke of it, they mentioned with smiles its two characteristic traits—the Third Floor and the Head Porter.
The Hohenzollern Hotel, indeed, had two sides, like many a better institution, and deliberately cultivated both.
The Third Floor represented one; and Salvation Joe the other.
There were respectable men and women who stayed regularly at the Hotel on the Crumbles, and denied quite honestly and not without heat all knowledge of the Third Floor and what it stood for. It was a convention at the Hohenzollern that nobody stopping there ever recognized anybody else. You went down to Beachbourne from town with the man who always occupied the chair next you at the club; you sat by his side in the station-bus that bore you to the portals of the Hotel; and then—you parted till Monday morning when you met once more on the platform at the station. Therefore the most staid and admirable of citizens often retired there to be undisturbed. Ministers and their secretaries during a busy Session, homely young couples on their honeymoons, even Bishops and clergymen in retreat. And for these the Hotel had its undoubted advantages. Eastwards the Levels stretched away for miles haunted by none but birds. The fore-shore was private, the sea itself secluded. There were no trippers, and, what mattered more, none of the usual Society week-enders. The former spread themselves between the Redoubt and the pier, the latter from the pier to Beau-nez.
It was for those who sought for quiet at the Hotel that the Head Porter existed. He was known far and wide as Salvation Joe, and always wore the red jersey of his kind by request of the Management; though unkind rumour affirmed that he had forfeited the right to his distinguishing habit.
On Sundays, after lunch, the second dining-room was cleared, and Salvation Joe, all glorious in scarlet apparel, held a meeting for the staff. Visitors would be welcomed, a notice in the hall announced, though as Joe often said with the splendid smile he was alleged to have copied from a recent Archbishop,
"It's only just among ourselves, sir. We call it our 'appy 'our. We just like to meet together the once a week—them and me and the Master."
That pleased the Bishops, who went back to the Athenæum and talked about it over their coffee; it delighted the occupants of the Third Floor, especially on wet Sundays; and, to judge from the attendance, it appeared to be very popular with the staff, who, warmed by the rays from Joe's benevolent eye, sang with enthusiasm Tell me the old, old story and the like.