“You will be notified, sir. There are only five ahead of you, and one gentleman now in. Your turn will come in about two hours.”
“This way, suh. Kindly follow me,” bade the Colonel. As he strode before, slightly listed by the weight of the bag in his left hand, I remarked a peculiar bulge elevating the portly contour of his right coat-skirt.
We ascended a flight of rude stairs which quivered to our tread, proceeded down a canvas-lined corridor 61 set at regular intervals on either hand with numbered deal doors, some open to reveal disorderly interiors; and with “Here you are, suh,” I was importantly bowed into Number Six.
We were not to be alone. There were three double beds: one well rumpled as if just vacated; one (the middle) tenanted by a frowsy headed, whiskered man asleep in shirt-sleeves and revolver and boots; the third, at the other end, recently made up by having its blanket covering hastily thrown against a distinctly dirty pillow.
“Your bed yonduh, suh, I reckon,” prompted the Colonel (whose accents did not smack of New York at all), depositing my bag with a grunt of relief. “Now, suh, as you say, you desire to freshen the outer man after your journey. With your permission I will await your pleasure, suh; and your toilet being completed we will freshen the inner man also with a glass or two of rare good likker.”
I gazed about, sickened. Item, three beds; item, one kitchen chair; item, one unpainted board washstand, supporting a tin basin, a cake of soap, a tin ewer, with a dingy towel hanging from a nail under a cracked mirror and over a tin slop-bucket; item, three spittoons, one beside each bed; item, a row of nails in a wooden strip, plainly for wardrobe purposes; item, one window, with broken pane.
The board floor was bare and creaky, the partition walls were of once-white, stained muslin through 62 which sifted unrebuked a mixture of sounds not thoroughly agreeable.
The Colonel had seated himself upon a bed; the bulge underneath his skirts jutted more pronouncedly, and had the outlines of a revolver butt.
“But surely I can get a room to myself,” I stammered. “The clerk mistakes me. This won’t do at all.”
“You are having the best in the house, suh,” asserted the Colonel, with expansive wave of his thick hand. He spat accurately into the convenient spittoon. “It is a front room, suh. Number Six is known as very choice, and I congratulate you, suh. I myself will see to it that you shall have your bed to yourself, if you entertain objections to doubling up. We are, suh, a trifle crowded in Benton City, just at present, owing to the unprecedented influx of new citizens. You must remember, suh, that we are less than one month old, and we are accommodating from three to five thousand people.”