“I say, Sam,” cried Yates, “can’t you do something better for us than the fifth floor? I didn’t come to Buffalo to engage in ballooning. No sky parlors for me, if I can help it.”
“I’m sorry, Dick,” said the clerk; “but I expect the fifth floor will be gone when the Chicago express gets in.”
“Well, what can you do for us, anyhow?”
“I can let you have 518. That’s the next room to yours. Really, they’re the most comfortable rooms in the house this weather. Fine lookout over the lake. I wouldn’t mind having a sight of the lake myself, if I could leave the desk.”
“All right. But I didn’t come to look at the lake, nor yet at the railroad tracks this side, nor at Buffalo Creek either, beautiful and romantic as it is, nor to listen to the clanging of the ten thousand locomotives that pass within hearing distance for the delight of your guests. The fact is that, always excepting Chicago, Buffalo is more like—for the professor’s sake I’ll say Hades, than any other place in America.”
“Oh, Buffalo’s all right,” said the clerk, with that feeling of local loyalty which all Americans possess. “Say, are you here on this Fenian snap?”
“What Fenian snap?” asked the newspaper man.
“Oh! don’t you know about it? I thought, the moment I saw you, that you were here for this affair. Well, don’t say I told you, but I can put you on to one of the big guns if you want the particulars. They say they’re going to take Canada. I told ‘em that I wouldn’t take Canada as a gift, let alone fight for it. I’ve been there.”
Yates’ newspaper instinct thrilled him as he thought of the possible sensation. Then the light slowly died out of his eyes when he looked at the professor, who had flushed somewhat and compressed his lips as he listened to the slighting remarks on his country.
“Well, Sam,” said the newspaper man at last, “it isn’t more than once in a lifetime that you’ll find me give the go-by to a piece of news, but the fact is I’m on my vacation just now. About the first I’ve had for fifteen years; so, you see, I must take care of it. No, let the Argus get scooped, if it wants to. They’ll value my services all the more when I get back. No. 518, I think you said?”