The
traveller who supposes that he is to repeat the melancholy experience of
Shenstone, and have to sigh over the reflection that he has found "his
warmest welcome at an inn," has something to learn at the offices of
the great city-hotels. The unheralded guest who is honored by mere
indifference may think himself blest with singular good-fortune.
If the despot of the Patent Annunciator is only mildly contemptuous in
his manner, let the victim look upon it as a personal favor. The coldest
welcome that a threadbare curate ever got at the door of a bishop's
palace, the most icy reception that a country-cousin ever received
at the city-mansion of a mushroom millionnaire, is agreeably tepid,
compared to that which the Rhadamanthus who dooms you to the more or
less elevated circle of his inverted Inferno vouchsafes, as you step up
to enter your name on his dog's-eared register. I have less hesitation
in unburdening myself of this uncomfortable statement, as on this
particular trip I met with more than one exception to the rule.
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