Another negro in the hall goes and gets your key when he sees you return from a walk. No need to tell him the number of your room—he knows it. He may have seen you but once before, but that is all-sufficient—he never errs.
And the negresses! good, merry-looking creatures, with buxom faces and forms, supple, light, graceful gait, and slender waists, aping the fashion, and having very pretty fashions of their own, coquetting and mincing as they walk out with their "tic'lars" (particulars). The enjoyment of life is written on their faces, and one ends by thinking some of them quite pretty. I have seen some splendid figures amongst them. You should see them on Sundays, dressed in scarlet or some other bright colour, with great hats jauntily turned up on one side, and fanning themselves with the ease and grace of Belgravian ladies.
Negresses are not employed as chambermaids in hotels. They go into service only as nurses, and of course children love them. Unhappily for you, it is the objectionable "duchesses" that you find again, upstairs this time. The evil is not so great as it is in the smaller towns, where these young persons wait at table also. In the best hotels, their only duty is to keep the bedrooms tidy. You must not ask any service of them beyond that. If you desire anything brought to your bedroom, you ring, and a negro comes to answer the bell and receive your order.
I remember having one day insulted one of these women—certainly unintentionally, but the crime was none the less abominable for that.
This was it.
I was dressing to go out to dinner, and wanted some hot water to shave with. Having rung three times and received no answer, I grew impatient and opened the door, in the hope of seeing some servant who would be obliging enough to fetch me the water in question. A chambermaid was passing my door.
"Could you, please, get me some hot water?" I said.
"What do you say?" was the reply, accompanied by a frown of contempt.
"Would you be so good as to get me some hot water?" I timidly repeated.