“Pardon me—one inquiry more: I was at the St. Nicholas last week when it was burnt down, and I lost some of my clothes. Is the owner liable to make good the damage sustained?”[83]
I heeded not, and went to seek my wife. After some search through the magnificent drawing-rooms of our sumptuous hotel, I at length found her in an elegant parlor, seated at a piano, and gently playing some sweet melodies. As I approached, she motioned me to be cautious. When I reached her, I saw that a large spider was stationed at the edge of the piano cover, apparently drinking in the harmony of sweet sounds to the utmost extent of his arachnidian nature. My advent broke the spell, and away the little hairy darkey rushed, hand over hand, up his tiny cable of four thousand twisted strands, till he was safe in the cornice of the ceiling. My wife was charmed at her novel listener, and exclaimed: “Did you ever see such a thing?”
“No, but I have read of it,” I replied. “Michelet, in his charming book on ‘The Insect,’ tells that a little musical prodigy, who at eight astounded and stupefied his hearers by his mastery of the violin, was forced to practice long weary hours in solitude. There was a spider, however, in the room, which, entranced by the melodious strains, grew more and more familiar, until at length it would climb upon the mobile arm that held the bow. Little Berthome needed no other listener to kindle his enthusiasm. But a cruel step-mother appeared on the scene suddenly one day, and with a single blow of her slipper annihilated the octopedal audience. The child fell to the ground in a deathlike faint, and in three months was a corpse—dead from a broken heart.”
“How sad!” said Mrs. Lawyer, in husky tones, as she blew her nose in a suspicious manner.
“Then there was also the musical spider of Pellison”—— A little snarleyow of a dog here rushed in and barked so vigorously and furiously that my wife never heard more of that spider. I tried to turn the wretched creature out, but a puppy following—the owner—requested me to leave it alone. I must say that I heartily concur with Mr. Justice Manisty (and I sincerely trust that my concurrence will afford encouragement to the learned gentleman in his arduous office) in holding that a guest cannot, under any circumstances, insist upon bringing a dog into any room in a hotel where other guests are. On the same occasion on which Judge Manisty expressed his views, Kelly, C. B., remarked that he would not lay down the rule positively that under no circumstances would a guest have a right to bring a dog into an inn; there might possibly, he observed, be circumstances in which, if a person came to an inn with a dog, and the innkeeper refused to put up the animal in any stable or outbuilding, and there was nothing that could make the canine a cause of alarm or an annoyance to others, its owner might be justified in bringing it into the house. His lordship, however, considered that a landlord had a right to refuse to provide for the wants of a visitor who insisted upon coming with two very large St. Bernard mastiffs, one a fierce creature, that had to be muzzled, the other a dog of a gentler nature, but somewhat given to that bad habit referred to in those Proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out, and by the apostle St. Peter in his second epistle.[84]
* * * * * *
The next day there was a gentle ripple of excitement pervading the house. Two cases of larceny came to light, and made the guests communicative and talkative.
In one case a Mr. Blank, his wife, and amiable and accomplished daughter, (I can vouch for the correctness of these adjectives; for I had a very pleasant chat—to call it by a mild name—with her one day, while Mrs. Lawyer was lying down after dinner) had a sitting-room and bedroom en suite, so arranged that when the sitting-room door was open one could see the entrances into both bedrooms. Mrs. B., being in her room, laid upon the bed her reticule, in which was a by no means despicable sum of money. She then rejoined her spouse and daughter in the sitting-room, leaving the door between the two apartments open. Some five minutes after, she sent Miss Blank—who was not too proud to run a short errand for her kind mamma—for the bag; but lo! it was gone, and was never again found by a member of the Blank family; for
“In vain they searched each cranny of the house,
Each gaping chink impervious to a mouse.”
The other robbery was of the goods of a young Englishman, who, the previous evening, had been boastfully exhibiting some sovereigns in the smoking-room. When he went to bed he had placed his watch and money on a table in his room, left his door open, and, on morning dawning, was surprised to find his time-piece and cash vanished with the early dew. Other people would have been surprised if they had remained.