The windows of the “Imperial Hotel” shed plenty of light upon the sidewalk in front of it, and I caught sight of Dragg hurrying past as if he wished to be swallowed up in the shadow’s on the other side. The man had reached the street ahead of us, for he had been in the smoking-car at the front of the train.
I took a chance and led Kingsley into the “Imperial Hotel” and registered in a book that a man in shirtsleeves tossed at me. I wrote “Adam Mann” and “A. Fellow”—the “A” standing for “Another,” of course, and that wasn’t bad for a quick grab at names. I did not care to advertise the name of Zebulon Kingsley to certain gentlemen in those parts.
From the corner of my eye I saw Dragg peering in at the window when the man in shirt-sleeves led us upstairs to a room which held two narrow cots and an unpainted washstand with bowl and pitcher. The walls were of tarred paper.
“Is this all you can give us for a room?” asked the judge, as sour as vinegar.
“What do you expect in a new town—marble floors and gold door-knobs? I have taken care of better men than you and they haven’t kicked.” He turned on me; I had not said anything. “You seem to have a rush of plug-hat to the brain!”
His impudence gave me my chance. Dragg had located me at that hotel and I wondered if I couldn’t turn a little trick.
“We’ll move on and look for a landlord with better manners,” I said.
“Go ahead,” advised the man. “A lot of tenderfeet do the same thing and after they’ve taken a look at the other place they come back here and beg for a room.”
On the street I kept in the shadows. After a time we came to another hulk of paper and boards. Its sign read, “Pallace Hotel.”
That extravagance in L’s might hint at generosity, I pondered, but I had my doubts.