ach room fitted out with
one of those smooth, deceptive beds that are all right until we begin to
use them for sleeping purposes, a bed that the tall man lies diagonally
across and groans through the livelong night.

Mr. Towel has made a rapid calculation on the buttered side of a menu,
and ascertained that if one-half the traveling men in the United States
would kindly advance $5, to be refunded in case they did not decide to
make a tour to the Roller Towel House, and to be taken out of the bill
in case they did, the amount so received would not only add a row of
compressed hot-air bedrooms, with flexible soap and a delirious-looking
glass, but also insure an electric button, which may or may not connect
with the office, and over which said button the following epitaph could
be erected:

One Ring for Bell Boy.
Two Rings for Porter.
Three Rings for Ice Water.
Four Rings for Rough on Rats.
Five Rings for Borrowed Money.
Six Rings for Fire.
Seven Rings for Hook and Ladder Company.

In fact, a man could have rings on his fingers and bell-boys on his toes
all the time if he wanted to do so.

And yet there will be traveling-men who will receive this kind circular
and still hang back. Constant contact with a cold, cruel world has made
them cynical, and they will hesitate even after Mr. Towel has said that
he will improve his house with the money, and even after he has assured
us that we need not visit Kansas at all if we will advance the money.
This shows that he is not altogether a heartless man. Mr. Towel may be
poor, but he is not without consideration for the feelings of people who
loan him money.

For my own part I fully believe that Mr. Towel would be willing to fit
up his house and put matches in each room if traveling-men throughout
the country would respond to this call for assistance.

But the trouble is that the traveling public expect a landlord to take
all the risks and advance all the money. This makes the matter of hotel
keeping a hazardous one. Mr. Towel asks the guests to become an
interested party. Not that he in so many words agrees to divide the
profits proportionately at the end of the year with the stockholders,
but he is willing to make his hotel larger, and if food does not come up
as fast as it goes down--in price, I mean--he will try to make all his
guests feel perfectly comfortable while in his house.

Under favorable circumstances the Roller-Towel House would