Sitting in willow chairs in front of a garage where Speed was looking for a special kind of oil which evidently the more pretentious hotel could not or would not supply, Franklin and I discussed the things we had heard and seen. I think I drew a parallel between this hotel here and similar hotels at Monte Carlo and Nice, where the prices would be no higher, if so high.
It so happened that in the morning, when I had been dressing, there had been a knocking at the door of the next room, and listening I had heard a man’s voice calling “Ma! Ma! Have you got an undershirt in there for me?”
I looked out to see a tall, greyheaded man of sixty or more, very intelligent and very forceful looking, a real American business chief.
“Yes,” came the answer after a moment. “Wait a minute. I think there’s one in Ida’s satchel. Is Harry up yet?”
“Yes, he’s gone out.”
This was at six A. M. Here stood the American in the pretentious hall, his suspenders down, meekly importuning his wife through the closed door.
Imagine this at Nice, or Cannes, or Trouville!
And then the lackadaisical store keeper where I bought my postcards.
“Need any stamps, cap?” was his genial inquiry.
Why the “cap”? An American civility—the equivalent of Mister, Monsieur, Sir,—anything you please.