CHAPTER II.
CITY HOUSE AND MANNERS.
The next evening, as Mrs. Lawyer and this present writer were rattling along at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour in the tail of the iron horse, my bride, imagining that she would like to know somewhat of the law, which had been my mistress for many years, and the ennui of the honeymoon having already commenced, asked me what was the legal definition of an inn.
I replied: “The definitions of an inn, like those of lovely woman, are very numerous: but perhaps the most concise is that given by old Petersdorff, who says it is ‘a house for the reception and entertainment of all comers for gain.’[37] Judge Bayley defined it to be a house where the traveler is furnished with everything he has occasion for while on the way.”[38]
“I should dearly love to stop at such an inn,” broke in my wife. “The worthy host would find my wants neither few nor small.”
“Oh, of course, the everything is to be taken not only cum grano salis but with a whole cellar full of that condiment. For instance, the landlord is not bound to provide clothes or wearing apparel for his guest.[39] But to proceed with our subject. Best, J., tried his hand—a good one, too—at definition-making, and declared an inn or hotel to be a house, the owner of which holds out that he will receive all travelers and sojourners who are willing to pay a price adequate to the sort of accommodation provided, and who come in a state in which they are fit to be received.[40] Another judge says it is a public house of entertainment for all who choose to visit it as guests without any previous agreement as to the time of their stay or the terms of payment.[41] The judges have, also, got off definitions of the word ‘innkeeper.’ It has been said that every one who makes it his business to entertain travelers and passengers and provide lodging and necessaries for them and their horses and attendants, is a common innkeeper.[42] But Bacon, very wisely and prudently, adds to this description the important words ‘for a reasonable compensation.’[43] One who entertains travelers for payment only occasionally, or takes in persons under an express contract, and shuts his doors upon those whom he chooses, is not an innkeeper, nor is he liable as such.[44] Stables are not necessary to constitute an inn;[45] nor is it essential that the meals should be served at table d’hôte.[46] A house for the reception and entertainment principally of emigrants arriving at a seaport and usually remaining but a short time, is yet an inn.”[47]
Here I stopped because I had nothing more to say; but seeing that my wife was gazing out of the window in a most inattentive manner, yet not wishing her to think that my fund of knowledge was exhausted, I added: “But a truce to this style of conversation. Remember that we are a newly married couple, and are not expected to talk so rationally.”
A pause ensued, during which, with great amusement and no little surprise at the facts and doctrines enunciated, we listened to the following dialogue between two rosy-cheeked Englishmen sitting in the seat behind us:
First Briton (loquitur).—“How disgusting it is to see those vile spittoons in hotels, in private houses, in churches—everywhere; and notwithstanding that their name is legion, the essence of nicotine is to be seen on all sides, dyeing the floors, the walls, the furniture.”
Second Briton.—“I have sometimes doubted whether the Americans expectorate to obtain good luck, or whether it is that they have such good fortune ever attending upon their designs and plans because they expectorate so much.”
First B. (rather dazed).—“I don’t understand you.”
Second B. (in tones of surprise at the other’s want of comprehension).—“Don’t you know that many Englishmen spit if they meet a white horse, or a squinting man, or a magpie, or if, inadvertently, they step under a ladder, or wash their hands in the same basin as a friend? In Lancashire, boys spit over their fingers before beginning to fight, and travelers do the same on a stone when leaving home, and then throw it away, and market people do it on the first money they receive.”
First B. (interrogatively).—“But, if these dirty people do indulge in this unseemly habit, what then?”
Second B.—“Why, they consider it a charm that will bring good luck, or avert evil. Swedish peasants expectorate thrice if they cross water after dark. The old Athenians used to spit if they passed a madman. The savage New Zealand priest wets two sticks with his saliva when he strives to divine the result of a coming battle.”
First B.—“But the why and the wherefore of all this expectoration?”
Second B.—“Because the mouth was once considered the only portal by which evil spirits could enter into a man, and by which alone they could be forced to make their exit; and the idea was to drive the fiends out with the saliva. The Mussulmans made spitting and nose-blowing a part of their religious ceremonies, for they hoped thereby to free themselves from the demons which they believed filled the air; and a Kamtschatkan priest, after he has sprinkled with holy water the babe brought to the baptismal font, spits solemnly to north and south, to east and west.”
A wild shriek of the locomotive, announcing that we were drawing near our destination, and the necessary preparations consequent upon such arrival, prevented us listening further to this conversation. I remarked to my wife that if I had never known of evil spirits being laid by the efflux of saliva, I had at least heard of their being raised thereby, and instanced Shylock and Signor Antonio.
We drove up to the “Occidental House” in the bus belonging to that famous establishment. The satchel of a fellow-traveler was lost off the top of the carriage. I endeavored to console him with the information that years ago, where the keeper of a public house gave notice that he would furnish a free conveyance to and from the cars to all passengers, with their baggage, and for that purpose employed the owner of certain carriages to take passengers and their baggage, free of charge, to his house, and a traveler, who knew of this arrangement, drove in one of these cabs to the hotel, and on the way there had his trunk lost or stolen through the want of skill or care of the driver, the innkeeper was held liable to make good the loss. The court that decided the point held that it was immaterial whether he was responsible as a common carrier or as an innkeeper, as in either case the consideration for the undertaking was the profit to be derived from the entertainment of the traveler as a guest, and that an implied promise to take care of the baggage was founded on such consideration.[48]
My fellow-traveler seemed not a little pleased with my information, and expressed his intention of seeking an early interview with the landlord of the “Occidental” on the subject of the lost satchel.
While in the bus, a man who appeared to be an agent for a rival house made some very disparaging remarks with regard to the “Occidental,” with more vehemence than elegance or truthfulness, evidently with the design of inducing some intending guests to change their minds and go elsewhere. It was well for him that none of the “Occidental” people heard him, for if they had he might speedily have become the defendant in an action at law, for misstatements like his are actionable.[49]
What a contrast between the palatial mansion at which we now alighted, and the hovel which the previous night had covered our heads—(protection it had not afforded). The small and dirty entrance of the one was exchanged for a spacious and lofty hall in the other, paved with marble and fitted up with comfortable sofas and cushions, on which was lounging and smoking, talking and reading, a multifarious lot of humanity; the parlor, with its yellow paint and rag carpet, was replaced by large, well lighted and elegantly furnished drawing-rooms, with carpets so soft that a footstep was no more heard than a passing shadow, and gorgeous mirrors reflecting the smiles, faces and elaborately artistic toilets of city belles, and the trim figures and prim moustaches of youthful swells; a pretty little room, yclept an elevator, neatly carpeted, well lighted, free from noxious scents, with comfortable seats and handsome reflectors, led up on high, instead of the groaning, creaking stairs of the country inn. The bedrooms, with their spotless linen, luxurious beds, dainty carpets, and cosy chairs, rested and refreshed one’s weary bones by their very appearance. The noble dining-hall, with its delicately tinted walls, its pillars and gilded roof, with neatly dressed waiters, and the master of ceremonies patrolling the room seeing to the comfort of the guests, the arrangements of their places, and that each servant did his duty, gave a zest to one’s appetite which the tempting viands increased a hundred fold, and the soups, fish, relèves, entrées, game, relishes, vegetables, pastry, and dessert of the menu differed from the bill of fare of the previous day as does light from darkness, sweet from bitter.
As we were ascending in the luxuriously furnished, brilliantly lighted and gently moving elevator, a ninnyhammer tried to get on after the conductor had started. In doing so he well nigh severed the connection between his ill-stored head and well-fed body. I told him that his conduct was most foolhardy, for if he had been injured he could have recovered nothing from the hotel proprietor, for the accident would have been directly traceable to his own stupid want of ordinary care and prudence.[50]
At the dinner table we found that many of the people, notwithstanding the luxurious surroundings, seemed quite oblivious of the sage advice given by Mistress Hannah Woolley, of London, in the year of grace 1673. That worthy says in her “Gentlewoman’s Companion”: “Do not eat spoon-meat so hot that tears stand in your eyes, or that thereby you betray your intolerable greediness. Do not bite your bread, but cut or break it; and keep not your knife always in your hand, for that is as unseemly as a gentlewoman who pretended to have as little a stomach as she had mouth, and therefore would not swallow her peas by spoonfuls, but took them one by one and cut them in two before she would eat them. Fill not your mouth so full that your cheeks shall swell like a pair of Scotch bag-pipes.”
One of the company near by ate as if he had never eaten in any place save a shanty all the days of his life; he was not quite so bad, however, as the celebrated Dr. Johnson, who, Lord Macaulay tells us, “tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with the veins swelling in his forehead, and the perspiration running down his cheeks;” but yet, in dispatching his food, he swallowed two-thirds of his knife at every mouthful with the coolness of a juggler.
“Such a savage as that ought not to be permitted to take his meals in the dining-room,” said my wife.
“I am not sure that he could be prevented on account of his style of eating,” I replied, as the man began shoveling peas with a knife into his mouth, which could not have been broader unless Dame Nature had placed his auricular appendages an inch or two further back. (By the way, how did they eat peas before the days of knives, forks, and spoons?)
“Do you mean to say that if an individual makes himself so extremely disagreeable to all other guests, the proprietor has no right to ask him to leave?” queried Mrs. L.
“Well, my dear, it was held in Pennsylvania that the host might request such an one to depart; and that if he did not, the hotel-keeper might lay his hands gently upon him and lead him out, and if resistance was made might use sufficient force to accomplish the desired end.”[51]
“Then please tell that waiter to take that man out,” broke in my wife.
“Not so fast, my dear; that decision was reversed afterward, and it was said to be assault and battery so to eject a guest.[52] I have known $600 damages given to a guest for an assault on him by his landlord.[53] I remember, too, a case where a man rejoicing in the trisyllabic name of Prendergast was coming from Madras to London round the Cape of Storms, having paid his fare as a cabin passenger. His habit was to reach across others at table to help himself, and to take potatoes and broiled bones in his fingers, devouring them as was the fashion in the days when Adam delved and Eve span, if they had such things then. The captain, offended at this ungentlemanly conduct, refused to treat Master P. as a first-class passenger, excluded him from the cabin, and would not allow him to walk on the weather side of the ship. On reaching England, Prendergast sued the captain for the breach of his agreement to carry him as a cuddy passenger; the officer pleaded that the conduct of the man had been vulgar, offensive, indecorous and unbecoming, but the son of Neptune was mulcted in damages to the tune of £25, Chief Justice Tindal observing that it would be difficult to say what degree of want of polish would, in point of law, warrant a captain in excluding one from the cuddy. Conduct unbecoming a gentleman in the strict sense of the word might possibly justify him, but in this case there was no imputation of the want of gentlemanly principles.[54] But here, at last, comes our dinner; let us show our neighbors how to handle knife and fork aright.”
And a very good dinner it was, too, although dished by a cook who had not the talents of the ancient knights of the kitchen who could dexterously serve up a sucking-pig boiled on one side and roasted on the other, or make so true a fish out of turnips as to deceive sight, taste, and smell. These antique masters of the gastronomic art knew how to suit each dish to the need and necessity of each guest. They held to the doctrine that the more the nourishment of the body is subtilized and alembicated, the more will the qualities of the mind be rarefied and quintessenced, too. For a young man destined to live in the atmosphere of a royal court, whipped cream and calves’ trotters were supplied by them; for a sprig of fashion, linnets’ heads, essence of May beetles, butterfly broth, and other light trifles; for a lawyer destined to the chicanery of his profession and for the glories of the bar, sauces of mustard and vinegar and other condiments of a bitter and pungent nature would be carefully provided.[55] As Lord Guloseton says, “The ancients seem to have been more mental, more imaginative, than we in their dishes; they fed their bodies, as well as their minds, upon delusion: for instance, they esteemed beyond all price the tongues of nightingales, because they tasted the very music of the birds in the organ of their utterance. That is the poetry of gastronomy.”
I noticed at a table near by a merry party. I afterward learned that it was composed of a number of fast young men from the city, who had come in to have a good dinner, and exhibit themselves, their garments, and their graces before the assembled guests; and that, when the hour of reckoning came, the needful wherewith to liquidate the little bill was not forthcoming. The landlord insisted that each one was liable for the whole, as there was no special agreement, (and this would generally be the case[56]) and that one who was solvent should pay the reckoning for all; but, unfortunately for Boniface, his clerk had been told beforehand that that moneyed man was the guest of the others, who were all as poor as Job’s peahens; so that the poor man had no recourse against the deadheads, in this direction, at all events,[57] and even the moneyed gent got a free dinner. The worthies swaggered out, singing in an undertone the words of an Ethiopian minstrel appropriate to the occasion.
* * * * * *
As my wife was returning to her room after dinner, she met a poor woman, whose daily walk in life was from the wash-tub to the clothes-line, looking in vain for some miserable sinner who had departed leaving his laundry bill unpaid. After endeavoring in vain to console the woman, Mrs. Lawyer, (who had a Quixotic way of interfering in other people’s troubles) came running back to me to ask if the hotel-keeper was not bound to pay for the washing. I told her of course not, unless he had been in the habit of paying the laundry bills of guests who had left; then an undertaking to that effect might be inferred, and it might be considered as evidence of an antecedent promise.[58] With this small crumb of comfort, my wife returned to the user of soap and destroyer of buttons.
While sitting, à la Mr. Briggs, in the smoking-room, “with my waistcoat unbuttoned, to give that just and rational liberty to the subordinate parts of the human commonwealth which the increase of their consequence after the hour of dinner naturally demands,” and gently, (as good Bishop Hall puts it) “whiffing myself away in nicotian incense to the idol of my intemperance,” a fellow-puffer spoke to me about the excessive charges of the house.
I told him that in the good old days of yore, and perchance even yet, an innkeeper who charged exorbitant prices might be indicted, and that our ancestors were wont to have the rates fixed by public proclamation.[59]
He then remarked that he would not mind about the prices, if the landlord had allowed him to do a little business in the place.
“Your right to lodge and be fed in the house gives you no right to carry on trade here,”[60] I replied.
“One of the waiters threatened to kick me yesterday for doing business.”
“Oh, if you are assaulted by any of the servants, the proprietor is liable to you in damages, though he was not himself present at the time, or even consenting thereto,”[61] I returned. Then, fearing lest I might be nourishing a viper in the shape of a book-agent, or vendor of patent articles, I left the room, the words of the poet running through my brain:
“Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes—the Bores and Bored.”