We stopped at a hotel by the railway-station.  Next morning, as we sat in my room waiting for breakfast to come up, we got a good deal interested in something which was going on over the way, in front of another hotel.  First, the personage who is called the portier (who is not the porter, but is a sort of first-mate of a hotel) [1.  See Appendix A] appeared at the door in a spick-and-span new blue cloth uniform, decorated with shining brass buttons, and with bands of gold lace around his cap and wristbands; and he wore white gloves, too.  He shed an official glance upon the situation, and then began to give orders.  Two women-servants came out with pails and brooms and brushes, and gave the sidewalk a thorough scrubbing; meanwhile two others scrubbed the four marble steps which led up to the door; beyond these we could see some men-servants taking up the carpet of the grand staircase.  This carpet was carried away and the last grain of dust beaten and banged and swept out of it; then brought back and put down again.  The brass stair-rods received an exhaustive polishing and were returned to their places.  Now a troop of servants brought pots and tubs of blooming plants and formed them into a beautiful jungle about the door and the base of the staircase.  Other servants adorned all the balconies of the various stories with flowers and banners; others ascended to the roof and hoisted a great flag on a staff there.  Now came some more chamber-maids and retouched the sidewalk, and afterward wiped the marble steps with damp cloths and finished by dusting them off with feather brushes.  Now a broad black carpet was brought out and laid down the marble steps and out across the sidewalk to the curbstone.  The portier cast his eye along it, and found it was not absolutely straight; he commanded it to be straightened; the servants made the effort—­made several efforts, in fact—­but the portier was not satisfied.  He finally had it taken up, and then he put it down himself and got it right.

At this stage of the proceedings, a narrow bright red carpet was unrolled and stretched from the top of the marble steps to the curbstone, along the center of the black carpet.  This red path cost the portier more trouble than even the black one had done.  But he patiently fixed and refixed it until it was exactly right and lay precisely in the middle of the black carpet.  In New York these performances would have gathered a mighty crowd of curious and intensely interested spectators; but here it only captured an audience of half a dozen little boys who stood in a row across the pavement, some with their school-knapsacks on their backs and their hands in their pockets, others with arms full of bundles, and all absorbed in the show.  Occasionally one of them skipped irreverently over the carpet and took up a position on the other side.  This always visibly annoyed the portier.

Now came a waiting interval.  The landlord, in plain clothes, and bareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step, abreast the portier, who stood on the other end of the same steps; six or eight waiters, gloved, bareheaded, and wearing their whitest linen, their whitest cravats, and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselves about these chiefs, but leaving the carpetway clear.  Nobody moved or spoke any more but only waited.