Professor Flick was located, it appeared, upon the first floor. It seemed, according to the representations of the devoted Copping, that Professor Flick was a very nervous man about the possibility of fires; that he never willingly went higher than the first floor in consequence, and that he always carried with him in his baggage a patent rope-ladder for fear of accidents.
'On the first floor,' said Miss Paulo. 'Which rooms?'
'The end suite at the right. On the same side as the rooms of his Excellency, but further off. Mr. Copping seems to like their situation the best of all the rooms I showed him.'
'On the same side as his Excellency's rooms? Well, I should think Professor Flick would be a quiet neighbour.'
'Probably, for he was very anxious to be quiet himself. But I am afraid the fame of our illustrious guest does not extend so far as Denver, for Mr. Copping asked what the flag was flying for, and when I told him he did not seem to be a bit the wiser.'
'The stupid man!' said Miss Paulo scornfully.
'And Professor Flick is just as bad. When I mentioned to him that his rooms were near those of Mr. Ericson, the Dictator of Gloria, he said that he had never heard of him, but that he hoped he was a quiet man, and did not sit up late.'
'Really,' said Miss Paulo, frowning, 'this Mr. Flick would seem to think that the world was made for folk-lore, and that he was folk-lore's Cæsar.'
'Ah, Miss Paulo,' said the practical Wilkins, with a smile, 'these scholars have queer ways.'
'Evidently,' answered Miss Paulo, 'evidently. Well, I suppose we must humour them sometimes, for the sake of the Utes and Apaches at least;' and, with the sunniest of smiles, Miss Paulo withdrew from the office, leaving, as it seemed to Mr. Wilkins, who was something of a poet in his spare moments, the impression as of departed divinity. The atmosphere of the hotel hall seemed to take a rosy tinge, and to be impregnated with enchanting odours as from the visit of an Olympian. Mr. Wilkins had been going through a course of Homer of late, in Bohn's translation, and permitted himself occasionally to allow his fancy free play in classical allusion. Never, though, to his credit be it recorded, did his poetic studies or his love-dreamings operate in the least to the detriment of his serious duties as head of the office in Paulo's Hotel, a post which, to do him justice, he looked upon as scarcely less important than that of a Cabinet Minister.