AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 



THE OPEN DOOR 



THERE are many interesting hotels scattered 

 about the world, with a few of which I am 

 acquainted and with a great many of which I am 

 not. Of course all hotels are interesting, from one 

 point of view or another. In fact the surest way to 

 fix an audience's attention is to introduce your hero, 

 or to display your opening chorus in the lobby or 

 along the facade of a hotel. The life, the movement 

 and colour, the shifting individualities, the pretence, 

 the bluff, the self-consciousness, the independence, 

 the ennui, the darting or lounging servants, the very 

 fact that of those before your eyes seven out of 

 ten are drawn from distant and scattered places, 

 are sufficient in themselves to invest the smallest 

 hostelry with glamour. It is not of this general 

 interest that I would now speak. Nor is it my 

 intention at present to glance at the hotels wherein 



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