And in place of him this--what is it they call it?--taxi,
with a clean-shaven cut-throat steering it. "Get in," he
says, Just that. He doesn't offer to help me or lift my
satchel. All right, young man, I'm crawling in.
That's the machine that marks it, eh? I suppose they have
them rigged up so they can punch up anything they like.
I thought so--he hits it up to fifty cents before we
start. But I saw him do it. Well, I can stand for it this
time. I'll not be caught in one of these again.
The hotel? All right, I'm getting out. My hotel? But what
is it they have done to it? They must have added ten
stories to it. It reaches to the sky. But I'll not try
to look to the top of it. Not with this satchel in my
hand: no, sir! I'll wait till I'm safe inside. In there
I'll feel all right. They'll know me in there. They'll
remember right away my visit in the fall of '86. They
won't easily have forgotten that big dinner I gave--nine
people at a dollar fifty a plate, with the cigars extra.
The clerk will remember _me_, all right.
Know me? Not they. The _clerk_ know me! How could he?
For it seems now there isn't any clerk, or not as there
used to be. They have subdivided him somehow into five
or six.
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