Tom asked this so peremptorily that the clerk looked at him icily with raised eyebrows, turned his back on the New-Yorker, made a pretense of once more looking at the index of rooms and guests, and said to him with a cold determination in his voice: “I made a mistake. I thought we had a vacant room on the eighth floor. I find we have no vacant room anywhere. I'm sorry, sir. Nothing left.”
He marked something after Tom's name on the register and turned away. He evidently considered the incident closed.
Tom was too surprised to be angry. Then he recovered himself. His business in Boston was to get a certain room in this hotel. He was a son of his father; so he said, with a quiet determination that disturbed the clerk:
“I must have Room 77 on the seventh floor! The price is of no consequence. I am Mr. Merriwether.”
“I told you it was engaged.”
“And I told you I must have it. Don't you understand English?”
“Don't you?” said the clerk, trying to disguise his growing uneasiness with a sneer.
This made Tom calm. He said, quietly:
“Will you be good enough to send my card to Mr. Starrett, the owner of this hotel? He knows who I am and who my father is; but if he should have forgotten, say that he is to call up Major Wilkinson, of Pierce, Wilkinson & Company, the bankers, or Mr. Blandy, of the Moontucket National Bank, or anybody who knows where New York is on the map. Good heavens! there must be somebody in Boston who hasn't been asleep for the last twenty years!” The clerk decided to be polite. The name Merriwether had a familiar sound, but he could not associate it. He said, more politely:
“I am sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but the room you want—and three others with it—have been engaged.”