4 - I Summon a Valet - Page 2

couch and covered my eyes with my hands and tried to realize
the situation. I was drunk with awe at all that was about me, and
should, I think, have gone mad trying to comprehend its grandeur, had
not my spirit been soothed by soft strains of music that now fell upon
my ears.

I opened my eyes to discover whence the sounds had come, and even as
the light streamed from unknown and unseen sources, so it was with the
harmonies which followed, harmonies surpassing in beauty and swelling
glory anything I had ever heard before.

And to these magnificent but soft and soothing strains I yielded
myself up and slept. How long my sleep continued I have no means of
knowing. It seemed to last but an instant, but when I opened my eyes
once more I felt absolutely renewed in body and in spirit. The damp
garments which I had worn when I fell back upon the couch had in some
wise been removed, and when I stood up to indulge in the usual
stretching of my limbs I found myself clad in an immaculate flowing
robe of white, soft of texture, fastened at the neck with a jewelled
brooch, and at the waist its fulness restrained by a girdle of gold.
Furthermore, I had apparently been put through a process of ablution
which left me with the cockles of my heart as warm as toast, and my
whole being permeated with a glow of health which I had not known for
many years. The aches in my bones, which I had feared on waking to
find intensified, were gone; and if I could have retained permanently
the aspect of vigor and beauty which was returned to me by the mirror
when I stood before it, I should be in imminent danger of becoming
conceited.

"I wonder," said I, as I gazed at myself in the mirror, "if this is
the correct costume for breakfast. It's a slight drawback to know
nothing of the customs of the locality in which you find yourself.
Possibly an investigation of my new wardrobe will help me to decide."

I looked over the rich garments which had been provided, and found
nothing which, according to my simple bringing up, suggested the idea
that it was a good thing to wear at the morning meal.

"They ought to send me a valet," I murmured. "Perhaps they will if I
ring for one. Where the deuce is the bell, I wonder?"

A search of the room soon divulged the resting-place of this desirable
adjunct to the tourist's comfort. The dial system which has proved so
successful in American hotels was in vogue here, except that it
manifested a willingness on the part of the proprietor to provide the
guest with a range of articles utterly beyond anything to be found in
the purely mundane caravansary. I found that anything under the canopy
that the mind of man could conceive of could be had by