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By
Author of
1922
By that same architectural gesture of grief which caused Jehan at Agrato erect the Taj Mahal in memory of a dead wife and a cold hearthstone,so the Bon Ton hotel, even to the pillars with red-freckled monolithsand peacock-backed lobby chairs, making the analogy rather absurdlycomplete, reared its fourteen stories of "elegantly furnished suites,all the comforts and none of the discomforts of home."
A mausoleum to the hearth. And as true to form as any that ever mournedthe dynastic bones of an Augustus or a Hadrian.
An Indiana-limestone and Vermont-marble tomb to Hestia.
All ye who enter here, at sixty dollars a week and up, leave behind thelingo of the fireside chair, parsley bed, servant problem, cretonne shoebags, hose nozzle, striped awnings, attic trunks, bird houses, ice-creamsalt, spare-room matting, bungalow aprons, mayonnaise receipt, fruitjars, spring painting, summer covers, fall cleaning, winter apples.
The mosaic tablet of the family hotel is nailed to the room side of eachdoor and its commandments read something like this:
One ring: Bell Boy.
Two rings: Chambermaid.
Three rings: Valet.
Under no conditions are guests permitted to use electric irons in rooms.
Cooking in rooms not permitted.
No dogs allowed.
Management not responsible for loss or theft of jewels. Same can be deposited for safe-keeping in the safe at office.
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Note:
Our famous two-dollar Table d'Hôte dinner is served in the Red
Dining Room from six-thirty to eight. Music.
It is doubtful if in all its hothouse garden of women the Hotel BonTon boasted a broken finger nail or that little brash place along theforefinger that tattles so of potato peeling or asparagus scraping.
The fourteenth-story manicure, steam bath, and beauty parlors saw toall that. In spite of long bridge table, lobby divan, and table-d'hôteséances, "tea" where the coffee was served with whipped cream and thetarts built in four tiers and mortared in mocha filling, the Bon Tonhotel was scarcely more than an average of fourteen pounds overweight.
Forty's silhouette, except for that cruel and irrefutable place wherethe throat will wattle, was almost interchangeable with eighteen's.Indeed, Bon Ton grandmothers with backs and French heels that weretwenty years younger than their throats and bunions, vied with twenty'sprofile.
Whistler's kind of mother, full of sweet years that were richer becauseshe had dwelt in them, but whose eyelids were a little weary, had noplace there.
Mrs. Gronauer, who occupied an out