Mrs. Durgin asked him the first day if he would not like to go into the serving-room and see it while they were serving dinner.  She tried to conceal her pride in the busy scene—­the waitresses pushing in through one valve of the double-hinged doors with their empty trays, and out through the other with the trays full laden; delivering their dishes with the broken victual at the wicket, where the untouched portions were put aside and the rest poured into the waste; following in procession along the reeking steamtable, with its great tanks of soup and vegetables, where, the carvers stood with the joints and the trussed fowls smoking before them, which they sliced with quick sweeps of their blades, or waiting their turn at the board where the little plates with portions of fruit and dessert stood ready.  All went regularly on amid a clatter of knives and voices and dishes; and the clashing rise and fall of the wire baskets plunging the soiled crockery into misty depths, whence it came up clean and dry without the touch of finger or towel.  Westover could not deny that there were elements of the picturesque in it, so that he did not respond quite in kind to Jeff’s suggestion—­“Scene for a painter, Mr. Westover.”

The young fellow followed satirically at his mother’s elbow, and made a mock of her pride in it, trying to catch Westover’s eye when she led him through the kitchen with its immense range, and introduced him to a new chef, who wiped his hand on his white apron to offer it to Westover.

“Don’t let him get away without seeing the laundry, mother,” her son jeered at a final air of absent-mindedness in her, and she defiantly accepted his challenge.

“Jeff’s mad because he wasn’t consulted,” she explained, “and because we don’t run the house like his one-horse European hotels.”

“Oh, I’m not in it at all, Mr. Westover,” said the young fellow.  “I’m as much a passenger as you are.  The only difference is that I’m allowed to work my passage.”

“Well, one thing,” said his mother, “is that we’ve got a higher class of boarders than we ever had before.  You’ll see, Mr. Westover, if you stay on here till August.  There’s a class that boards all the year round, and that knows what a hotel is—­about as well as Jeff, I guess.  You’ll find ’em at the big city houses, the first of the winter, and then they go down to Floridy or Georgy for February and March; and they get up to Fortress Monroe in April, and work along north about the middle of May to them family hotels in the suburbs around Boston; and they stay there till it’s time to go to the shore.  They stay at the shore through July, and then they come here in August, and stay till the leaves turn.  They’re folks that live on their money, and they’re the very highest class, I guess.  It’s a round of gayety with ’em the whole year through.”