describes the Hotel porter; a very Grand Hotel has
at least two of these impositions--the House Porter and the Omnibus
Porter. The latter you only see twice in your Hotel existence, but he
is the most futile and the deadliest fraud of the two.

This Porter is part and parcel of that horrible deep-red-plush
nuisance, the Hotel-omnibus. He and it are inseparables, and make up
a sort of Centaur between them. Once outside the Railway-station, I
am besieged by a babel of these Porter-omnibuses--"Bear Hotel, Sor;"
"Grand Hotel, Sor!"--This, from a very dilapidated specimen, which,
on inspection, turns out to be "Grand Hotel Du Lac;" a pirate
porter-omnibus in fact; at last I find _The_ Grand Hotel vehicle, and
functionary. The latter is of gigantic stature; quite a "chucker-out;"
in a uniform between that of a German bandsman and a Salvation
Captain--"Certinly, Sar. Dis Grand Hotel; I see your Loggosh, Sar; gif
me se empfangschein." "Do you speak English?" I retort.--"Certinly;
spik Ingleese--empfangschein!"--"Empfangschein" baffles me, and I
am about to hand my keys to the monster, when a good-natured Courier
explains that it signifies the luggage-receipt.

Away ambles the Porter, leaving me with that orphaned sort of feeling
which a luggageless Englishman experiences; it is pouring cats and
dogs; I am dead beat; I creep into the dark omnibus. I find myself
quite alone. I wait impatiently--a quarter of an hour--twenty-five
minutes--still no Porter; I am famished; to distract myself, I
peer through the door, whence I can discern the messy vista of the
railway-station in the rain; it's lucky I do so; for there I behold my
own portmanteau, with its huge purple stripe, being hauled away on the
back of a railway-man, followed by an alien Hotel Porter, _not mine_,
doing nothing: they are always doing nothing. To rush out indignantly,
seize my box, defy the brigands, and carry it back myself, seemed
the work of an instant. Drenched and gasping, I find myself once
more outside; the Porter of the Grand Hotel Du Lac is at my heels,
furious and impertinent. "Dis, _not_ your loggosh: other shentleman's
loggosh." He seized the portmanteau, and a struggle would certainly
have ensued, when my own Hotel Porter appeared on the scene
triumphant, with a regiment of station-men carrying one small tin box.
"What you do, Sar; see _here_, your loggosh!" The tin box belonged to
a commercial-traveller, who was bound for the Hotel Du Lac.

I am t