ss
card, Jacob B. Glow. It was entered at the club as J. Bartlett Glow. On
the wedding invitations it was Mr. Bartlett Glow, and the dashing pair
were always spoken of at Newport as the Bartlett-Glows.
When Mr. King descended from his room at the Ocean House, although it was
not yet eight o'clock, he was not surprised to see Mr. Benson tilted back
in one of the chairs on the long piazza, out of the way of the scrubbers,
with his air of patient waiting and observation. Irene used to say that
her father ought to write a book--"Life as Seen from Hotel Piazzas." His
only idea of recreation when away from business seemed to be sitting
about on them.
"The women-folks," he explained to Mr. King, who took a chair beside him,
"won't be down for an hour yet. I like, myself, to see the show open."
"Are there many people here?"
"I guess the house is full enough. But I can't find out that anybody is
actually stopping here, except ourselves and a lot of schoolmarms come to
attend a convention. They seem to enjoy it. The rest, those I've talked
with, just happen to be here for a day or so, never have been to a hotel
in Newport before, always stayed in a cottage, merely put up here now to
visit friends in cottages. You'll see that none of them act like they
belonged to the hotel. Folks are queer."
At a place we were last summer all the summer boarders, in
boarding-houses round, tried to act like they were staying at the big
hotel, and the hotel people swelled about on the fact of being at a
hotel. Here you're nobody. I hired a carriage by the week, driver in
buttons, and all that. It don't make any difference. I'll bet a gold
dollar every cottager knows it's hired, and probably they think by the
drive."
"It's rather stupid, then, for you and the ladies."
"Not a bit of it. It's the nicest place in America: such grass, such
horses, such women, and the drive round the island--there's nothing like
it in the country. We take it every day. Yes, it would be a little
lonesome but for the ocean. It's a good deal like a funeral procession,
nobody ever recognizes you, not even the hotel people who are in hired
hacks. If I were to come again, Mr. King, I'd come in a yacht, drive up
from it in a box on two wheels, with a man clinging on behind with his
back to me, and have a cottage with an English gardener. That would
fetch 'em. Money won't do it, not at a hotel. But I'm not sure but I
like this way best. It's an occupation for a ma
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