Читать книгу Abroad and at Home; Practical Hints for Tourists - Morris Phillips - Страница 19

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The latest constructed of these three hotels is the Hotel Victoria. Printed words cannot easily convey to the mind an adequate idea of the magnificence of this structure. The public rooms of the Victoria are palatial in their proportions and appointments, the grand staircase is a marvel of beauty, and the sleeping rooms contain all the conveniences and contrivances found in modern hotels of the highest class. Besides the comforts characteristic of an English house, and the luxurious cuisine of a continental hotel, the attention and the discipline which rule at the Victoria remind one of an American hotel.

You need have no fear at the Victoria that the cards of friends calling will not be promptly sent to you: nor is there any delay or trouble at this house, as there is at certain hotels in the Strand, about the delivery of telegrams, letters and packages. Each guest is known to the officials and servants, not by name, but by number—the number of the room he occupies. Letters are placed in your box up to a certain hour of the evening, after that hour they are sent to your room. There is a package-room, also a “package clerk,” who receives all bundles, signs therefor, and enters the same in a book, so that it may be known immediately if a package has been received for a guest.

If a telegram or a card from a caller is received and the key to your room is not in its box, thus indicating that you are in your room, or at least in the house, a servant is immediately dispatched to your room, while a little page in livery is started off through all the halls and public rooms calling out in a loud voice your room number in this fashion, “Number 630, please.” If you are anywhere under the roof you are sure to be found by this excellent method.

A feature of the Hotel Victoria is a corps of valets. There are seven floors in the building, each accommodating about sixty or seventy guests, and to each floor a valet is assigned who performs all the ordinary duties of such a servant. Shoes are not carried down below to be mixed and confused with hundreds of others, but are polished by the valet on your floor. The valet also enters your room during your absence, removes all the clothes he finds hanging or lying about, brushes and folds the same and puts them back neatly. It is a convenience, returning to your hotel late in the evening and in haste to dress for dinner or the theatre, to find your evening suit nicely folded and brushed, ready to put on. These and other provisions for the comfort of guests indicate the general care in management and the close attention to detail which obtain at the Victoria, and which have given it its wide reputation. The appointments include a billiard room with five full-sized tables. Good rooms on fifth floor, a dollar and a half a day. This includes attendance and lights. Breakfast from two shillings to three-and-six; table d’hôte luncheon about the same; table d’hôte dinner, one dollar and a quarter. Manager, Henry Logan.