In view of their lassitude in this respect, I have composed a classic letter, designed to simultaneously make the thief ashamed, to save his face, and to persuade him to return at once what he has stolen. To make him ashamed, I lead off with a paragraph about how hard we are working to make our motel a success, and how vital our linens are in carrying on our business, and how expensive to replace; to save his face, I mention my certainty that no doubt the missing article was somehow mixed up with his own belongings and taken away by mistake. To persuade him to return what he has stolen, I insert a few casual sentences of highly unmerited flattery about the local police department.
This classic letter of which I am so proud has never, I might add, never once resulted in the return of a stolen article.
The weather was growing more and more summerlike, with the gaps between hot stretches fewer and fewer. The warm, indescribably sweet scent so characteristic of Banning grew stronger every day. Grant was finding out about the various types of air conditioning and their respective prices. He didn't want to install and advertise air conditioning until the summer was so well under way that we wouldn't be apt to get competition this year in that field from other motel owners who would notice the improvement in our business.
Palm Springs trade had fallen off because of the tapering off of cold weather, and the rental rates in that celestially exclusive village had been cut in half. The press agents of the little desert town were going wild cooking up rodeos, fiestas, and everything else they could think of. Big organizations were enticed, by various means, to hold meetings there that could be played up in the papers; the Shriners had an initiation ceremony there that was the talk of the surrounding cities for weeks. When John Payne and Gloria De Haven spent a weekend in the village they received enough newspaper mention to satisfy a conceited President, with their activities detailed, and the suggestion explicit that many other even more glittering Hollywood personalities were about to descend upon Palm Springs, where the lowly vacationist could rub elbows with them at the neighborhood grocery store or bar. The cream of all the publicity stunts, though, was the appearance in Palm Springs of a "divine healer," the greatest on earth for centuries! Those who had feasted their eyes on his rotund majesty were whispering, it was reported, that he was Buddha reincarnated. Newspapers throughout the west carried stories of the marvellous cures he was effecting left and right (neglecting to list traceable addresses of the curees), and at last the whole publicity campaign built up to a crescendo of suspense when a "famous" European millionaire brought his adolescent daughter, supposedly afflicted with epilepsy since babyhood, to Palm Springs, to see whether the great healer could cure her. The healer didn't bring his divine powers to bear on the daughter until there had been time for the papers to play up the coming event and create suspense, and for readers of the papers to develop a proper attitude of interest and excited anticipation. When at last the case had aroused enough attention, the healer healed the "epileptic" girl, completely and dramatically, in one treatment.
That, as it was supposed to do, gave Palm Springs' trade a powerful shot in the arm. There were many skeptics, but also many who were awed by the healer's powers. Grandma was one of the latter. "I swear'n," she said defensively, "he's a sight better'n any fortune teller, that's a cinch." With the reduced rates, and the added attractions, Palm Springs built up a fairly good business again, in spite of the heat.
But there were still Palm Springers who stayed in Banning, where the climate was cooler and the rates were, even now, cheaper.
A middle-aged couple who had spent one night in Palm Springs and had, according to what they said, suffered from both the heat and the rate, came into the office one Saturday night when we had just one vacancy. All the other motels on our end of town happened to be full before us.
The woman, a slender, small-boned creature, stood in the office regarding me with somber eyes while her husband went outside to see what his license number was.
"Your cabins got a potty?" she demanded suddenly.
"Oh no," I said uncertainly. "We have well-equipped bathrooms, one to each cabin," I elaborated.