sunsets seemed to last half the night. Dim or foggy weather, on the other hand, just sped by like smoke on the wind.
Emma worked very hard, but it made her happy to see how nice everything looked, and to see the strange guests enjoying themselves. The Freets stayed most of the time in the Conservatory, lying motionless side-by-side on a pair of deck chairs. They seemed to like the perfumes of the flowers.
The People of the Sands found an indoor swimming pool—it had the word NATATORIUM over the door in gold letters, but there was only a pool inside, though a very big one. They spent all their time in the water, floating peacefully while the camels paddled to and fro. The beautiful people, on the other hand, spent almost all their time in the Theater, watching movies they had brought. The Theater turned out to have a cabinet full of silent movies by a Mr. Méliès, but the beautiful people preferred to watch their own. Emma peeped in once and saw that the movies just showed the beautiful people themselves, lying on the sand at beaches or wearing evening dress at fancy nightclubs.
Mr. Eleutherios and his ladies sat up through long, long nights in the Bar, laughing with Captain Doubloon and drinking lots of punch, and sometimes Mr. Eleutherios played a sort of a guitar. By day they all lay out on the verandah in deck chairs in the shade, and complained that the sea was too loud.
And while they were all enjoying themselves, Emma and Masterman would help Winston clean up their rooms. At first Masterman grumbled a lot, but he soon became very proud of the way he could put the clean sheets on so smoothly they looked like newly fallen snow, without one wrinkle or crease. He became quite fussy if he didn’t think Emma was doing it right.
At last Emma let him make all the beds himself. Instead, she would make sure there was fresh soap and clean towels in all the bathrooms, while Winston scrubbed the bathtubs. Mr. Eleutherios and his ladies always left their bathtubs a mess, full of squashed grapes.
There were no vacuum cleaners in the Grand Wenlocke, but Masterman found an old-fashioned carpet-sweeper. He took off the push-handle and invented a way to rig the sweeper up to a little harness. He put the harness on Shorty, who ran happily up and down the corridors pulling the sweeper to and fro.
When each room was tidy, Emma and Masterman would pick up big armfuls of sheets and towels and take them down to the Electrical Laundry. This was a vaulted hall under the hotel, opening off the Kitchens. All down one side of the room were giant tubs of hot water that filled from copper boilers, and the mechanism of the Difference Engine powered big paddles that sloshed round and round in the tubs.
Captain Doubloon worked down there in the mornings. He liked throwing the laundry in and adding soap flakes, but he didn’t so much like hauling out the wet laundry afterward and putting it through the wringer, or trudging along between miles of clotheslines with his arms full of wet towels and his mouth full of clothespins, while his parrot made sarcastic remarks. Still, he was too proud to admit that sailors weren’t better than anybody else at keeping things clean, so he did a good job and didn’t curse where anybody but the parrot could hear him.
When any of the guests decided to go to the Dining Room, Masterman would serve as the maître d’, in his long tailcoat, and show them to their places. Emma would give them their menus, which Mrs. Beet wrote out in ink every day, and then take their orders when they had decided what they wanted to eat. Winston would run down to the Kitchens with their orders, and when Mrs. Beet had loaded their plates, he would hurry back up with a big silver cart full of trays of food.
The Freets never ordered anything but dessert, like Cherries Jubilee or Baked Alaska. The People of the Sands had coffee with every meal, and put so much cream and sugar in it that the coffee was as thick as syrup. The
Emma worked very hard, but it made her happy to see how nice everything looked, and to see the strange guests enjoying themselves. The Freets stayed most of the time in the Conservatory, lying motionless side-by-side on a pair of deck chairs. They seemed to like the perfumes of the flowers.
The People of the Sands found an indoor swimming pool—it had the word NATATORIUM over the door in gold letters, but there was only a pool inside, though a very big one. They spent all their time in the water, floating peacefully while the camels paddled to and fro. The beautiful people, on the other hand, spent almost all their time in the Theater, watching movies they had brought. The Theater turned out to have a cabinet full of silent movies by a Mr. Méliès, but the beautiful people preferred to watch their own. Emma peeped in once and saw that the movies just showed the beautiful people themselves, lying on the sand at beaches or wearing evening dress at fancy nightclubs.
Mr. Eleutherios and his ladies sat up through long, long nights in the Bar, laughing with Captain Doubloon and drinking lots of punch, and sometimes Mr. Eleutherios played a sort of a guitar. By day they all lay out on the verandah in deck chairs in the shade, and complained that the sea was too loud.
And while they were all enjoying themselves, Emma and Masterman would help Winston clean up their rooms. At first Masterman grumbled a lot, but he soon became very proud of the way he could put the clean sheets on so smoothly they looked like newly fallen snow, without one wrinkle or crease. He became quite fussy if he didn’t think Emma was doing it right.
At last Emma let him make all the beds himself. Instead, she would make sure there was fresh soap and clean towels in all the bathrooms, while Winston scrubbed the bathtubs. Mr. Eleutherios and his ladies always left their bathtubs a mess, full of squashed grapes.
There were no vacuum cleaners in the Grand Wenlocke, but Masterman found an old-fashioned carpet-sweeper. He took off the push-handle and invented a way to rig the sweeper up to a little harness. He put the harness on Shorty, who ran happily up and down the corridors pulling the sweeper to and fro.
When each room was tidy, Emma and Masterman would pick up big armfuls of sheets and towels and take them down to the Electrical Laundry. This was a vaulted hall under the hotel, opening off the Kitchens. All down one side of the room were giant tubs of hot water that filled from copper boilers, and the mechanism of the Difference Engine powered big paddles that sloshed round and round in the tubs.
Captain Doubloon worked down there in the mornings. He liked throwing the laundry in and adding soap flakes, but he didn’t so much like hauling out the wet laundry afterward and putting it through the wringer, or trudging along between miles of clotheslines with his arms full of wet towels and his mouth full of clothespins, while his parrot made sarcastic remarks. Still, he was too proud to admit that sailors weren’t better than anybody else at keeping things clean, so he did a good job and didn’t curse where anybody but the parrot could hear him.
When any of the guests decided to go to the Dining Room, Masterman would serve as the maître d’, in his long tailcoat, and show them to their places. Emma would give them their menus, which Mrs. Beet wrote out in ink every day, and then take their orders when they had decided what they wanted to eat. Winston would run down to the Kitchens with their orders, and when Mrs. Beet had loaded their plates, he would hurry back up with a big silver cart full of trays of food.
The Freets never ordered anything but dessert, like Cherries Jubilee or Baked Alaska. The People of the Sands had coffee with every meal, and put so much cream and sugar in it that the coffee was as thick as syrup. The
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