There are a good many associations attached to these keys, like the tags.
They point backward to the rooms to which the keys belong. Here is a fat
one that led to room number 33-1/2 in the Synagogue hotel. It was a
cheerful room, where the bell boy said an old man had asphyxiated himself
with gas the previous week. I had never met the old man before, but that
night, about 1 o'clock A.M., I had the pleasure of his acquaintance. He
came in a sad and reproachful way, and showed me how the post-mortem
people had disfigured him. Of course it was a little tough to be mutilated
by an inquest, but that's no reason why he should come back there and
occupy a room that I was paying for so that I could be alone. He showed me
how he blew out the gas, and told me how a man could successfully blow
down the muzzle of a shot-gun or a gas jet, but both of these weapons had
a way of blowing back.
I have a key that brings back to me the memory of a room that I lived in
two days at one time. I do not mean that I lived the two days at once, but
that at one period I occupied that room, partially, for two days and two
nights, I say I partially occupied it, because I used to occupy it days
and share it nights with others; that is, I tried to occupy it nights. I
tried to get the clerk to throw off something because I didn't have the
exclusive use of the room. He wouldn't throw off anything. He even wanted
to fight me because I said that the room was occupied before I got it and
after I left it. Finally, I told him that if he would throw a bed quilt
over his diamond, so I could see him, I would fight him with buckwheat
cakes at five-hundred miles. I took my position the next morning at the
place appointed, but he did not appear.
Extracts from a Queen's Diary.
January 1.--I awoke late this forenoon with a pain through the head and a
taste of ennui in the mouth, which I can hardly account for. Can it be a
result of the party last evening? I ween it may be so. We had a lovely
card party last evening. It was very enjoyable, indeed. Whist was the
game.
January 3.--Yesterday all day I was unable to leave my room, owing to a
headache and nervous prostration, caused by late hours and too much
company, the doctor said. It is too bad, and yet I do so much enjoy our
card parties and the excitement of the game. To-night I am to take part in
a little quiet game of draw poker, I think they call it. I have not had
any experience heretofore in the game, but trust I shall soon learn it.
There has been some talk about £1 ante and £5 limit. I do not exactly
understand the terms. I hope it does not mean anything wrong.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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