“How?”
“Who says he did?”
“This feller did—alone? Yaaah!”
“What do you take us for?” one breathless skeptic demanded of Warde.
And so, shouting, clamoring, denying, scoffing, questioning and crowding about him and talking all at the same time, the crowd constituted itself a vociferous escort to Westy as he passed along the walk and up the big veranda and into the spacious, airy lobby of the Mammoth Hotel.
He had expected to keep his promise to his poor, fond mother and “wash his hands and face and brush his clothes before leaving the train,” and a few minutes later descend, bag and baggage, from an auto before the portal of his first stopping place in the park. “When you enter a hotel,” she had said, adjusting his collar, “you want to have your hair brushed and look like a gentleman.”
“Is Mr. Madison C. Wilde here?” Warde asked.
“The movie man?”
“Sure he is, he’s in the smoking room.”
“No, he isn’t, he’s in the lobby—he’s mad.”