The hotel struck even Hyacinth as of inferior quality, though it boasted great things in the timetable advertisements, and called itself ‘Imperial’ in large gold letters above its door. A smell of whisky and tobacco greeted him as he entered, and a waiter with a greasy coat, in answer to inquiries about a bed, sent him down a dark passage to seek a lady called Miss Sweeney at the bar. Large leather cases with broad straps and waterproof-covered baskets blocked the passage, and Hyacinth stumbled among them for some time before he discovered Miss Sweeney reading a periodical called _Spicy Bits_ among her whisky-bottles. She was a young woman of would-be fashionable appearance, and acted apparently in the double capacity of barmaid and clerk. On hearing that Hyacinth required, not whisky, but a bedroom, she requested him to go forward to the office, indicating a glass case at the far end of the bar counter. Here he repeated his request to her through a small opening in the glass, and received her assurance, given with great condescension, that No. 42 was vacant, and, further, that there was a fire in the commercial room. A boy whom she summoned carried Hyacinth’s bag to an extremely dirty and ill-furnished bedroom, and afterwards conducted him to the promised fire. Two other guests were seated at it when he entered, who, after a long stare, made room for him. Apparently there was no one else stopping in the hotel, and the whole mass of cumbrous baggage which blocked the passage to the bar must belong to them. Hyacinth realized, with a feeling of disgust which he could not account for, that these were two members of his new profession--fellow-travellers in the voyages of commerce. He gathered--for they talked loudly, without regarding his presence--that they represented two Manchester firms which were rivals in the wholesale drapery business. Very much of what they said was unintelligible to him, though the words were familiar. He knew that ‘lines’ could be ‘quoted,’ but not apparently in the same sense in which they discussed these operations, and it puzzled him to hear of muslins being ‘done at one and seven-eighths.’ He sat for a time wondering at the waste of money and energy involved in sending these men to remote corners of Ireland to search for customers. Then he left them, and made his way down the muddy street to Mr. Quinn’s house.