XIV
PHILISTIA
All things considered, it was the Griswold of the college-graduate days—the days of the slender patrimony which had capitalized the literary beginning—who presented himself at the counter of the Hotel Chouteau at half-past nine o'clock on the evening of the Belle Julie's arrival at St. Louis, wrote his name in the guest-book, and permitted an attentive bell-boy to relieve him of his two suit-cases.
The clerk, a rotund little man with a promising bald spot and a permanent smile, had appraised his latest guest in the moment of book-signing, and the result was a small triumph for the Olive Street furnishing house. Next to the genuinely tailor-made stands the quality of verisimilitude; and the keynote of the clerk's greeting was respectful affability.
"Glad to have you with us, Mr. Griswold. Would you like a room, or a suite?"
Griswold was sufficiently human to roll the long-submerged courtesy prefix as a sweet morsel under his tongue. With a day to spare he might have clinched the clerk's respect by taking a suite; the more luxurious, the better. But St. Louis, with at least two men in it who would sweep the corners in their search for him, was only a place to put behind him. So he said: "Neither; if I have time to get my supper and catch a train. Have you a railway guide?"
"There is one in the writing-room. But possibly I can tell you what you wish to know. Which way are you going?"
Without stopping to think of the critical happenings which had intervened since the forming of the impulsive resolution fixing his destination, Griswold named the chosen field for the hazard of fresh fortunes, and its direction.
"North; to a town in Minnesota called Wahaska. Do you happen to know the place?"
"I know it very well, indeed; southern Minnesota is my old stamping-ground. Are you acquainted in Wahaska?—but I know you are not, or you wouldn't pronounce it 'Wayhaska'."