She has gone, this friend of mine. All winter she has been staying at
the Fairmont. Much of the time I, too, have been staying at the Fairmont
as her guest. So it is with a sense of double bereavement that I write.
Talk to me no more of the comfort of cozy little homes. Give me a hotel
where I am treated as though I were a Somebody. Where I have but to
press a button and a liveried servant comes running as though I were
Mary, Queen of England, or Clara Kimball Young. And plenty of hot water
for baths and lots of enormous towels and, as soon as one's butter is
gone, another piece, and fresh butter at that. Pitchers of ice water and
a strapping big man standing so solicitously and watching one's every
mouthful. It makes me feel as though I were the Shah of Persia. At home
I don't feel at all like the Shah of Persia.
I came across something the other day that Boswell quotes Dr. Johnson as
saying on this same subject: "There is no private house in which people
may enjoy themselves as at a capital tavern. At a tavern you are sure
you are welcome, and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give,
the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are."
This friend of mine can go to the room telephone and say, so
incidentally, "Room service, please," and order a meal in her room with
almost negligence.
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