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Now and then a reckless and adventurous proprietor undertakes
to make a day's journey alone through his establishment. He is never
heard of afterwards,--or, if found, is discovered in a remote angle or
loft, in a state of insensibility from bewilderment and starvation.
If it were not for an occasional negro, who, instigated by charitable
motives or love of money, slouches about from room to room with an empty
coal-scuttle as an excuse for his intrusions, a gentleman stopping at a
Washington hotel would be doomed to certain death. In fact, the lives of
all the guests hang upon a thread, or rather, a wire; for, if the bell
should fail to answer, there would be no earthly chance of getting into
daylight again. It is but reasonable to suppose that the wires to many
rooms have been broken in times past, and it is well known in Washington
that these rooms are now tenanted by skeletons of hapless travellers
whose relatives and friends never doubted that they had been kidnapped
or had gone down in the Arctic.


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