78 With Feet to the Earth 



panics can do a service, however, if you 

 wish to keep supplied with fresh linen, or 

 if you want to shine in evening dress at the 

 hotels, or if it is needful to your pleasure 

 to destroy life with guns ; for a heavy 

 valise or trunk may be sent ahead, and 

 will await you at your hotel, if it is not in 

 some other man's hotel, or if you can get 

 into your own in the busy season. This 

 service is expensive, uncertain, and causes 

 delays, for in regions of much resort, 

 where the means of handling crowds are 

 still insufficient, baggage bides its time 

 until its owners are lodged, and annoying 

 swindles are permitted by hotel and livery 

 men and express companies. 



One of the small frauds that need not 

 fret the walker is the hotel 'bus, that waits 

 for guests at railway stations. Nothing is 

 said about fare, and it is supposed that the 

 landlord who demands four dollars a day 

 for a cot in a corridor and three boarding^ 

 house meals will at least collect his vic^ 

 tims ; but, no : the driver assesses twenty- 

 five to fifty cents all around. This scheme 

 is sometimes practised : a free coach for the 





