“In the Servants’ Hall, as they called it; a building back of the hotel with a lot of little rooms with iron beds in them. I could have slept on the office floor or on top of the elevator cage that night! To-day I didn’t have to go to work until twelve o’clock, and I was glad of it, I tell you, for my legs were stiff as anything! They’re stiff yet,” added Tom, stretching them carefully as though he was afraid they might break off, “but not so bad; they’ve got limbered up now.”
“Did they let you off early?” asked Nelson.
Tom shook his head smilingly.
“No,” he answered. “I severed my connection with the Seamont Inn at exactly half-past eight. It was this way. I got a call to Room 86. When I went up there an old codger with a white mustache and a red face lighted into me for not coming sooner; said he’d been ringing for ten minutes and I was the slowest boy he’d ever seen and needed to have some of the fat worked off me. I said I’d bet I could beat him to the end of the hall and back and he got waxy about it; said he was going to send for the manager and have me discharged. I told him to go ahead. So I went downstairs and resigned before the old codger could report me. The manager chap said he guessed I wasn’t cut out for a bell boy. I asked him if I owed him anything and he said No, I’d worked it off. He was very decent about it. I told him I’d be glad to pay him, though, if he thought I owed him anything and he wanted to know how. ‘Thought you said you didn’t have any money?’ said he. I told him I didn’t have any when I got there, but that I’d made four dollars and seventy-five cents in tips. He thought that was funny, too; he had a keen sense of humor for a hotel man. But he said we were square, and so I thanked him and shook hands with him and changed my clothes. Roberts was sorry I was going; said they all had trouble with the red-faced old idiot.”
“He ought to have spanked you, just the same,” said Bob.
Tom grinned.
“He’d have tried it, I guess, if he’d had any clothes on to speak of. Well, I called up the hotel in New London on the ’phone and asked if you fellows had been there and they said you had and had left word that I was to come to the wharf by the ferry slip. So when it stopped raining I started to walk it; they said it was only three and a half miles. But about the time I was half way it began to pour like anything. I got under a tree for a while, but that wasn’t any good and so I came on. When I saw this light I thought it was a house. But while I was trying to find the doorbell I heard you fellows talking. I heard Bob say ‘I guess I’m like Tommy.’ Then I opened the door a bit and peeped in. That’s all.”
“And you thought it would be a fine joke to scare the life out of us, eh?” asked Bob.
Tom nodded.
“Well, you came pretty near to doing it. I never saw a more outlandish object than you were when you came through the door!”