“Never mind the bath,” I uttered, breathless, in a voice that I scarcely recognized, so piping and aghast it was. “I’ve been robbed—of money, clothes, baggage, everything!”
“Well, what at?” he queried, with a glimmer of a smile. 96
“What at? In my room, I tell you. I had just changed to try on these things; the street fight sounded; I was gone not five minutes and nevertheless the room was sacked. Absolutely sacked.”
“That,” he commented evenly, “is hard luck.”
“Hard luck!” I hotly rejoined. “It’s an outrage. But you seem remarkably cool about it, sir. What do you propose to do?”
“I?” He lifted his brows. “Nothing. They’re not my valuables.”
“But this is a respectable hotel, isn’t it?”
“Perfectly; and no orphan asylum. We attend strictly to our business and expect our guests to attend to theirs.”
“I was told that it was safe for me to leave my things in my room.”
“Not by me, sir. Read that.” And he called my attention to a placard that said, among other matters: “We are not responsible for property of any nature left by guests in their rooms.”