CHAPTER IV DUTY AND THE JUG
Mr. Thomas Ardmore, one trunk, two bags, and a little brown jug reached the Guilford House, Raleigh, at eight o'clock in the morning. Ardmore had never felt better in his life, he assured himself, as he chose a room with care and intimated to the landlord his intention of remaining a week. But for the ill luck of having his baggage marked he should have registered himself falsely on the books of the inn; but feeling that this was not quite respectable he assured the landlord, in response to the usual question, that he was not Ardmore of New York and Ardsley but an entirely different person.
"Well, I don't blame you for not wanting to be taken for any of that set," remarked the landlord sympathetically.
"I should think not!" returned Ardmore in a tone of deep disgust.
The Guilford House coffee was not just what he was used to, but he was in an amiable humor and enjoyed hugely the conversation of the commercial travelers with whom he took his breakfast. He did not often escape from himself or the burden of his family reputation, and these strangers were profoundly entertaining. It had never occurred to Ardmore that man could be so amiable so early in the day and his own spirits rallied as he passed the sugar, abused the hot bread and nodded his approval of bitter flings at the inns of other southern towns of whose existence he only vaguely knew. They spoke of the president of the United States and of various old world monarchs in a familiar tone that was decidedly novel and refreshing; and he felt that it was a great privilege to sit at meat with these blithe spirits. Commercial travelers, he now realized, were more like the strolling players, the wandering knights, the cloaked riders approaching lonely inns at night, than any other beings he had met out of books. It was with the severest self-denial that he resisted an impulse to invite them all to visit him at Ardsley or to use his house in Fifth Avenue whenever they pleased. When the man nearest him, who was having a second plate of corn cakes and syrup, casually inquired his "line," Ardmore experienced a moment of real shame, but remembering the jug he had acquired in the night he replied:
"Crockery."
"Mine's drugs. Do you know Billy Gallop?—he's in your line."
"Should say I did," replied Ardmore unhesitatingly. "I took supper with him in Philadelphia Sunday night."