The “coffee-room” of “the best hotel” is cold and cheerless. Smoke without fire is obtained from some wet coal-dust, economically caked, according to the mode of thrifty housekeepers in the British Isles, in an infinitesimal grate in a remote corner of the room. Impossible to think any “Thoughts” here. Some solemn-looking men, [pg 412] very particular about their chops—I mean their mutton-chops—are enjoying—or, more correctly, consuming, for there is no evidence of enjoyment—their morning meal.
Our breakfast is not a bad one. The chops are excellent; the beefsteak, so-so. I have eaten better beef in New York. The bread is hard and heavy, but white and not ill-tasted. I wish the Irish and English waiters would adopt the short alpaca jacket and long white apron of the waiters of Paris and New York. It is a much neater and cleaner costume. The greasy full-dress coat and limp, whity-brown neck-cloth are not only absurd; they are often disgusting.
Still raining! The sidewalks are hid from view by the thickly-passing umbrellas. Let us go and buy some umbrellas! Life seems to be impossible without them here. In the three kingdoms, umbrellas are indispensable to respectability.
“I hate respectability,” said the Lady from Idaho with a vicious emphasis.
I was rather astonished by this outburst, but I reflected that allowance must be made for ladies' tempers on draggle-tail mornings.
“Such weather,” I remarked, “is enough to make one hate anything.”
“It is not that,” she retorted. “I hate respectability, rain or shine.”
“Des goûts et des couleurs—you know the old proverb.”
“There is nothing more selfish, more hypocritical, more cowardly, than ‘respectability.’ ”
“My dear madam, I did not take the trouble of coming from the other side of the Rocky Mountains for the purpose of chopping logic. I must buy umbrellas.”