Отель «Гранд Вавилон» / The Grand Babylon hotel

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�Rocco is a great man,’ murmured Mr Babylon as he touched the bell, ignoring the last words. �My compliments to Mr Rocco,’ he said to the page who answered his summons, �and if it is quite convenient I should be glad to see him here for a moment.’

�What do you give Rocco?’ Racksole inquired.

�Two thousand a year and the treatment of an Ambassador.’

�I shall give him the treatment of an Ambassador and three thousand.’

�You will be wise,’ said Felix Babylon.

At that moment Rocco came into the room, very softly—a man of forty, thin, with long, thin hands, and an inordinately long brown silky moustache.

�Rocco,’ said Felix Babylon, �let me introduce Mr Theodore Racksole, of New York.’

�Sharmed,’ said Rocco, bowing. �Ze—ze, vat you call it, millionaire?’

�Exactly,’ Racksole put in, and continued quickly: �Mr Rocco, I wish to acquaint you before any other person with the fact that I have purchased the Grand Babylon Hotel. If you think well to afford me the privilege of retaining your services I shall be happy to offer you a remuneration of three thousand a year.

�Tree, you said?’

�Three.’

�Sharmed.’

�And now, Mr Rocco, will you oblige me very much by ordering a plain beefsteak and a bottle of Bass to be served by Jules—I particularly desire Jules—at table No. 17 in the dining-room in ten minutes from now? And will you do me the honour of lunching with me to-morrow?’

Mr Rocco gasped, bowed, muttered something in French, and departed.

Five minutes later the buyer and seller of the Grand Babylon Hotel had each signed a curt document, scribbled out on the hotel note-paper. Felix Babylon asked no questions, and it was this heroic absence of curiosity, of surprise on his part, that more than anything else impressed Theodore Racksole. How many hotel proprietors in the world, Racksole asked himself, would have let that beef-steak and Bass go by without a word of comment.

�From what date do you wish the purchase to take effect?’ asked Babylon.

�Oh,’ said Racksole lightly, �it doesn’t matter. Shall we say from to-night?’

�As you will. I have long wished to retire. And now that the moment has come—and so dramatically—I am ready. I shall return to Switzerland. One cannot spend much money there, but it is my native land. I shall be the richest man in Switzerland.’ He smiled with a kind of sad amusement.