nt character?"

"Look," I said patiently, "last night a woman friend of mine registered
at this hotel and I accompanied her to this door. Number 913. Now--"

A long apelike arm came out and caught me by the coat lapels. He hauled
and I went in fast. His breath was sour and his eyes were bloodshot and
he was angry all the way through. His other hand caught me by the seat
of the pants and he danced me into the room like a jumping jack.

"Friend," he ground out, "Take a look. There ain't no woman in this
room, see?"

He whirled, carrying me off my feet. He took a lunging step forward and
hurled me onto the bed, where I carried the springs deep down, to bounce
up and off and forward to come up flat against the far wall. I landed
sort of spread-eagle flat and seemed to hang there before I slid down
the wall to the floor with a meaty-sounding Whump! Then before I could
collect my wits or myself, he came over the bed in one long leap and had
me hauled upright by the coat lapels again. The other hand was cocked
back level with his shoulder it looked the size of a twenty-five pound
sack of flour and was probably as hard as set cement.

_Steve_, I told myself, _this time you're in for it!_

"All right," I said as apologetically as I knew how, "so I've made a bad
mistake. I apologize. I'll also admit that you could wipe up the hotel
with me. But do you have to prove it?"

Mr. Horace Westfield's mental processes were not slow, cumbersome, and
crude. He was as fast and hard on his mental feet as he was on his
physical feet. He made some remarks about my intelligence, my
upbringing, my parentage and its legal status, and my unwillingness to
face a superior enemy. During this catalog of my virtueless existence,
he gandy-walked me to the door and opened it. He concluded his lecture
by suggesting that in the future I accept anything that any registration
clerk said as God-Stated Truth, and if I then held any doubts I should
take them to the police. Then he hurled me out of the room by just sort
of shoving me away. I sailed across the hall on my toes, backward, and
slapped my frame flat again, and once more I hung against the wall until
the kinetic energy had spent itself. Then I landed on wobbly ankles as
the door to Room 913 came closed with a violent slam.

I cursed the habit of building hotels in dead areas, although I admitted
that I'd steer clear of any hotel in a clear area myself. But I didn't
need a clear area nor a sens