All three were somewhat disappointed to find none of these things happened, and that the locomotion seemed very little different from that to which they had been accustomed on their visits to the seaside. The roar and lights of a great station, where it seemed one half of the world was rushing to catch trains, [116] ]and the other half had come to see them off and wave good-bye; then a stuffy big cab again.
One night in the big, quiet hotel, where the elder little maids had stayed once before in wealthier days on a visit to the great capital, the hotel that seemed so fascinating a fairyland to them, they had brought it into their play for months afterwards, and shed their fairy wings in order to play chambermaids and waiters. Indeed, there had been a Sunday evening when Dolly, brought to book for her sins, had grown pink with shame, and told how “when it was sermon time and she couldn’t understand, she couldn’t help thinking how lovely the church would be to play ‘hotel’ in.” And Phyl, equally pink, had confessed also to imagining she was the boy chalking the number of each bedroom on the boots outside.
“If the pews hadn’t had numbers on like those bedrooms, I shouldn’t have thought of it,” she added excusingly.
Breakfast at the big hotel, a white world just becoming soiled and smirched outside. A dignified waiter behind the chairs of the three little maids.
“Devilled kidneys, chops and tomato-sauce, York ham, eggs aux Champignons, or fried soles?” he says rapidly to Dolly. Dolly gives a slight gasp. It has been the unalterable rule of her life to let Phyl decide questions like these. Once even when she and Phyl were invited out to tea, and she was asked first what she would have, she grew red and hesitated, and [117] ]finally said in a very shy whisper, “I’ll wait and see what Phyl has, please.”
“Devilled kidneys, chops and tomato-sauce, York ham,” begins the man again.
“Fried soles,” says Phyl, who has deliberated thoughtfully.
“Fwied soles,” says Dolly, relievedly.
“[Fried soles, an’ egg, an’ chop, an’ devilly,]” says Weenie.