“And now remember,” continued Hegglund, seeing that he himself was next, and cautioning him for the last time, “if dey wants drinks of any kind, you get ’em in de grill over dere off’n de dining-room.
An’ be sure and git de names of de drinks straight or dey’ll git sore.
An’ if it’s a room you’re showing, pull de shades down to- night and turn on de lights. An’ if it’s anyt’ing from de dinin’- room you gotta see de headwaiter — he gets de tip, see.”
“Front!”
He was up and gone.
And Clyde was number one.
And number four was already seating himself again by his side — but looking shrewdly around to see if anybody was wanted anywhere.
“Front!” It was Mr. Barnes.
Clyde was up and before him, grateful that it was no one coming in with bags, but worried for fear it might be something that he would not understand or could not do quickly.
“See what 882 wants.”
Clyde was off toward one of the two elevators marked, “employees,” the proper one to use, he thought, because he had been taken to the twelfth floor that way, but another boy stepping out from one of the fast passenger elevators cautioned him as to his mistake.
“Goin’ to a room?” he called.
“Use the guest elevators.
Them’s for the servants or anybody with bundles.”
Clyde hastened to cover his mistake.
“Eight,” he called.
There being no one else on the elevator with them, the Negro elevator boy in charge of the car saluted him at once.
“You’se new, ain’t you?
I ain’t seen you around her befo’.”
“Yes, I just came on,” replied Clyde.
“Well, you won’t hate it here,” commented this youth in the most friendly way.
“No one hates this house, I’ll say.
Eight did you say?”
He stopped the car and Clyde stepped out.
He was too nervous to think to ask the direction and now began looking at room numbers, only to decide after a moment that he was in the wrong corridor.
The soft brown carpet under his feet; the soft, cream- tinted walls; the snow-white bowl lights in the ceiling — all seemed to him parts of a perfection and a social superiority which was almost unbelievable — so remote from all that he had ever known.
And finally, finding 882, he knocked timidly and was greeted after a moment by a segment of a very stout and vigorous body in a blue and white striped union suit and a related segment of a round and florid head in which was set one eye and some wrinkles to one side of it.
“Here’s a dollar bill, son,” said the eye seemingly — and now a hand appeared holding a paper dollar.
It was fat and red.
“You go out to a haberdasher’s and get me a pair of garters — Boston Garters — silk — and hurry back.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Clyde, and took the dollar.
The door closed and he found himself hustling along the hall toward the elevator, wondering what a haberdasher’s was.
As old as he was — seventeen — the name was new to him. He had never even heard it before, or noticed it at least.
If the man had said a “gents’ furnishing store,” he would have understood at once, but now here he was told to go to a haberdasher’s and he did not know what it was.
A cold sweat burst out upon his forehead.
His knees trembled.
The devil!
What would he do now?
Could he ask any one, even Hegglund, and not seem —
He pushed the elevator button. The car began to descend.
A haberdasher.
A haberdasher.
Suddenly a sane thought reached him.
Supposing he didn’t know what a haberdasher was? After all the man wanted a pair of silk Boston garters.
Where did one get silk Boston garters — at a store, of course, a place where they sold things for men.
Certainly.
A gents’ furnishing store.
He would run out to a store.
And on the way down, noting another friendly Negro in charge, he asked:
“Do you know if there’s a gents’ furnishing store anywhere around here?”