All his life he had been no poor hater, Toselli. As commis he had hated the maitre maitre d’hôtel, as maitre d’hôtel he had hated the management, as the management he hated many things: the chef, wet weather, his wife, the head porter’s mustache, clients who demanded to see him at breakfast time—oh, many things! But more than all he hated the police. They were bad for business and bad for the digestion. It stopped his digestive juices flowing just to see one of them walk in through the glass doors. It was bad enough to remember his annual bill for New Year “presents” to the local officers—thirty bottles of Scotch, thirty of gin, two dozen champagne, and six of liqueur brandy it had come to last year—but to suffer the invasion of officers not so far “looked after,” and therefore callous to the brittle delicacy of hotel well-being—well, it was more than Toselli’s abundant flesh and high-pressured blood could stand. That is why he smiled so sweetly upon Grant—all his life Toselli’s smile had been stretched across his rage, like a tight-rope spanning a chasm—and gave him one of the second-best cigars.
