Behind the imposing marble “desk” stood several impeccable clerks, and to one of these I addressed myself, giving our names and mentioning the fact that we had telegraphed for rooms.  I am not sure that this young man wore a braided cutaway and a white carnation; I only know that he affected me as hotel clerks in braided cutaways and white carnations always do.  While I spoke he stood a little way back from the counter, his chin up, his gaze barely missing the top of my hat, his nostrils seeming to contract with that expression of dubiousness assumed by delicate noses which sense, long before they encounter it, the aroma of unworthiness.

“Not a room in the house,” he said.  Then, as though to forestall further parley, he turned and spoke with gracious lightness to one of his own rank and occupation who, at the request of my companion, was ascertaining whether letters were awaiting us.

“But we telegraphed two days ago!” I protested desperately.

“Can’t help it.  Hardware Convention.  Everything taken.”

Over my shoulder I heard from my companion a sound, half sigh, half groan, which echoed the cry of my own heart.

“I felt this coming!” he murmured.  “Didn’t you notice all these people with ribbons on them?  There’s never any room in a hotel where everybody’s wearing ribbons.  It’s like a horse show.  They get the ribbons and we get the gate.”

“Surely,” I faltered, “you can let us have one small room?”

“Impossible,” he answered brightly.  “We’ve turned away dozens of people this evening.”

“Then,” I said, abandoning hope, “perhaps you will suggest some other hotel?”

I once heard a woman, the most perfect parvenu I ever met, speak of her poor relations in a tone exactly similar to that in which the clerk now spoke the names of two hotels.  Having spoken, he turned and passed behind the partition at one end of the marble counter.

My companion and I stood there for a moment looking despondently at each other.  Then, without a word, we retreated through that gorgeous lobby, feeling like sad remnants of a defeated Yankee army.

Again we motored through the bright streets, but only to successive disappointments, for both hotels mentioned by the austere clerk were “turning ’em away.”  Our chauffeur now came to our aid, mentioning several small hotels, and in one of these, the Granada, we were at last so fortunate as to find lodgings.

“It begun to look like you’d have to put up at the Roden,” the chauffeur smiled as we took our bags out of the car and settled with him.

“The Roden?”

“Yes,” he returned “Best ventilated hotel in the United States.”

Next day when the Hotel Roden was pointed out to us we appreciated the witticism, for the Roden is—­or was at the time of our visit—­merely the steel skeleton of a building which, we were informed, had for some years stood unfinished owing to disagreements among those concerned with its construction.