"That's right," he said; "you've got to prospect it before you find out what it's worth; and I know a whole lot of fellows who've gone broke prospecting."
That landlord of ours up in the glorious Catskills was a hard subject to catch napping, and many a time I've watched him crawl out of a hole with hardly an effort.
Probably it requires considerable nerve to run a summer resort hotel, and meet all the requirements which the traveling public seem to expect.
On one occasion I heard a tourist who had just arrived ask him the old chestnut:
"Is this a good place, landlord, do you think, for a person affected with a weak chest?"
"None better, sir, none better."
"I've been recommended, you know, by the doctor, to spend the summer in some mountain region where the south wind blows. Does it blow much here?"
"Why sure, it's always the south wind that blows here," replied the landlord, stoutly.