A pale chambermaid, wearing a black jersey with large pores in it through which she is gently percolating, now goes joyously up the stairs to make the little post-office lock-box rooms look ten times worse than they ever did before. She warbles a low refrain as she nimbly knocks loose the venerable dust of centuries and sets it afloat throughout the rooms. All is bustle about the house. Especially the chambermaid. We were put in the guests' chamber here. It has two atrophied beds made up of pains and counterpanes. This last remark conveys to the reader the presence of a light, joyous feeling which is wholly assumed on my part. The door of our room is full of holes where locks have been wrenched off in order to let the coroner in. Last night I could imagine that I was in the act of meeting, personally, the famous people who have tried to sleep here and who moaned through the night and who died while waiting for the dawn. I have no doubt in the world but there is quite a good-sized delegation from this hotel, of guests who hesitated about committing suicide, because they feared to tread the red-hot sidewalks of perdition, but who became desperate at last and resolved to take their chances, and they have never had any cause to regret it. [Illustration] We washed our hands on doorknob soap, wiped them on a slippery elm court-plaster, that had made quite a reputation for itself under the nom-de-plume of "Towel," tried to warm ourselves at a pocket inkstand stove, that gave out heat like a dark lantern and had a deformed elbow at the back of it. The chambermaid is very versatile, and waits on the table while not engaged in agitating the overworked mattresses and puny pillows up-stairs. In this way she imparts the odor of fried pork to the pillow-cases and kerosene to the pie. She has a wild, nervous and apprehensive look in her eye, as though she feared that some herculean guest might seize her in his great strong arms and bear her away to a justice of the peace and marry her. She certainly cannot fully realize how thoroughly secure she is from such a calamity. She is just as safe as she was forty years ago, when she promised her aged mother that she would never elope with any one. Still, she is sociable at times and converses freely with me at table, as she leans over my shoulder, pensively brushing the crumbs into my lap with a general utility towel, which accompanies her in her various rambles through the house, and she asks what we would rather have--"tea or eggs?"