An hour later we breakfasted on ham and eggs at a stand-up all-night lunch counter which we located after much wandering, and then, returning to the hotel, Brother Conk in all his muscular majesty dawned upon the horizon of my life. I can best describe him by saying that whatever he might do in action, a camera fiend would have found in him a perfect model for a snapshot of the long-looked-for White Hope. He was huge and indescribably red. His name should have been Rufus, and the hand of Esau was a smoothly shaven thing alongside of the Conkian fist. He had a penetrating, yet rolling eye that would have subjugated a Kaiser with a single glance. He was scrutinizing his fingernails as we entered his presence, and in view of my supreme ambition to remain a hero always in the eyes of my Muse I saw her safely deposited in our hermetically sealed receiving vault above before venturing to address the gentleman. This done, I started in to pay my respects to Mine Host.
"I don't suppose you could let us have a larger room," said I tentatively, my words coming with a husky falter.
"I dunno what room ya got," was the gruff response, one of the rolling eyes settling full upon both of mine.
"We're in nun-number thirty-two," I ventured meekly.
"Well, thirty-three's an inch and a half wider," said he, biting off a hang nail. "Ya can move inta that if ya wanta."
It hardly seemed worth while, and considering that in respect to matters other than its size, or lack of it, we already knew the worst as to thirty-two, we left thirty-three unvisited on the principle that
—makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
There were enough wings loose in number thirty-two to enable us to fly anywhere on the face of the earth; but we decided not to avail ourselves of them.
"Never mind, my dear," said I. "Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe."
And the Only Muse merely laughed, and with feminine exaggeration comforted me with the assurance that "it might be worse." I suppose it might have been; though I don't know how. Anyhow I sat down on the rockless rocker, drew an overdraft on the bank of cheer, and proceeded to read aloud that fine story of Fiona Macleod's about the good old North Countryman who every morning walked out upon his breezy headland and "took off his hat to the beauty of the world."