I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred the “dishpans.” We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and to eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a “grilled sole” for the first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as “fried flatfish” we liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon, to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished, was a rather convenient person to have about. Hephzy fumed a good deal at first; she declared that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied woman like her, to sit around with her hands folded and do nothing. She asked her maid a great many questions, and the answers she received explained some of her puzzles. “Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?” she observed, referring to the maid. “Eight shillin's--two dollars a week, that's what she gets. And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson can afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough to boil water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters--why in the world do they call women by their last names?--Peters, she's the maid, says it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where ignorance is bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but _I_ wouldn't fetch and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an everyday body like me, for two dollars a week.” We learned that the hotel dining-room was a “Coffee Room.” “Nobody with sense would take coffee there--not more'n once, they wouldn't,” declared Hephzy. “I asked Peters why they didn't call it the 'Tea Room' and be done with it. She said because it was the Coffee Room. I suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a good deal as if I'd come out of the same hole I went in at. She thanked me for askin' her, though; she never forgets that.” We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his Christian name and found him a most obliging person. He, like everyone else, had instantly recognized us as Americans, and, consequently, was condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant and barbarous country.