The distinguished victim, drying himself rather ruefully on an exceedingly rough towel, looked a little weary and disgusted.  “Such language!” some one afterwards said he said to some one else.  “He’s not used to dealing with gentlemen, that’s plain.  The man talks like a blackguard.  And to think we pay for such things!  Well, well!  I’ll not stand it, I’m afraid.  I’ve had about enough.  It’s positively revolting, positively revolting!” But he stayed on, just the same—­second thoughts, a good breakfast, his own physical needs.  At any rate weeks later he was still there and in much better shape physically if not mentally.

About the second or third day I witnessed another such spectacle, which made me laugh—­only not in my host’s presence—­nay, verily!  For into this same chamber had come another distinguished personage, a lawyer or society man, I couldn’t tell which, who was washing himself rather leisurely, as was not the prescribed way, when suddenly he was spied by mine host, who was invariably instructing some one in this swift one-minute or less system.  Now he eyed the operation narrowly for a few seconds, then came over and exclaimed: 

“Wash your toes, can’t you?  Wash your toes!  Can’t you wash your toes?”

The skilled gentleman, realizing that he was now living under very different conditions from those to which presumably he was accustomed, reached down and began to rub the tops of his toes but without any desire apparently to widen the operation.

“Here!” called the host, this time much more sharply, “I said wash your toes, not the outside of them!  Soap them!  Don’t you know how to wash your toes yet?  You’re old enough, God knows!  Wash between ’em!  Wash under ’em!”

“Certainly I know how to wash my toes,” replied the other irritably and straightening up, “and what’s more, I’d like you to know that I am a gentleman.”

“Well, then, if you’re a gentleman,” retorted the other, “you ought to know how to wash your toes.  Wash ’em—­and don’t talk back!”

“Pah!” exclaimed the bather now, looking twice as ridiculous as before.  “I’m not used to having such language addressed to me.”

“I can’t help that,” said Culhane.  “If you knew how to wash your toes perhaps you wouldn’t have to have such language addressed to you.”

“Oh, hell!” fumed the other.  “This is positively outrageous!  I’ll leave the place, by George!”

“Very well,” rejoined the other, “only before you go you’ll have to wash your toes!”

And he did, the host standing by and calmly watching the performance until it was finally completed.

It was just this atmosphere which made the place the most astonishing in which I have ever been.  It seemed to be drawing the celebrated and the successful as a magnet might iron, and yet it offered conditions which one might presume they would be most opposed to.  No one here was really any one, however much he might be outside.  Our host was all.  He had a great blazing personality which dominated everybody, and he did not hesitate to show before one and all that he did so do.