The fact was, that the Bath Hotel had been a most excellent house three or four summers previous, and the "enterprising and gentlemanly" landlord (to borrow an American penny-a-liner's phrase) having made a fortune, as he deserved, had sold out his lease, with the good-will and fixtures of the establishment, to Mr. Grabster. The latter gentleman was originally a respectable farmer and market-gardener in the vicinity of Oldport; and having acquired by his business a fair sum of money, was looking about for some speculation in which to invest it. He commenced his new profession with tolerably good intentions, but having as much idea of keeping a hotel as he had of steering a frigate, and finding a balance against him at the end of the first season from sheer mismanagement, he had been endeavoring ever since to make up for it by screwing his guests in every way. People naturally began to complain. Two courses were open to him--to improve his living, or to tip an editor to puff him. He deemed the latter course the cheaper, and bought _The Sewer_, which, while uttering the most fulsome adulation of every thing connected with the Bath Hotel, frightened the discontented into silence through dread of its abuse. Ludlow, and some of the other exclusives, had, in the beginning of the present season, contrived a remedy, which, for the time, was perfectly successful. They held a private interview with the cook, and made up a weekly contribution for him, on condition of their having the best of every thing, and enough of it, for dinner; and the waiters were similarly retained. For a time this worked to a marvel, and the subscribers were as well fed as they could desire. But the other guests began to make an outcry against the aristocracy and exclusiveness of private dishes on a public table, and the servants soon hit upon a compromise of their own, which was to take the money without rendering the _quid pro quo_. This, of course, soon put an end to the payments, and things were on the old starvation footing again. After dinner, every body who had horses rode or drove. The roads about Oldport were heavy and sandy, and terrible work the dust made with the ladies' fine dresses and the gentlemen's fine coats. "Rather different from the drives about Baden-Baden," said Benson. "Yes; but I suppose we must console ourselves on moral grounds, and remember, that there we owe the beautiful promenades to the gambling-table, while here we are without the roads, and also without the play." "Ah, but isn't there play here! only all _sub rosa_. Wait a while, and you'll find out."