Hotel Scenes from the Velvet Paw of Asquith Novels

by Thomas Corfield

CHAPTER 6

  From When Fear Is Not Afraid, Chapter 18

  ____________________

  In which Oscar tries to have breakfast in the sort of hotel that has difficulty spelling the word, before noticing some framed sick on a wall.

  With a sigh, Oscar struggled out of bed, amazed he’d been able to sleep at all, considering the thing was so lumpy that it didn’t need a pillow—which was fortunate, as its pillow was even lumpier. After donning a fresh pair of pantaloons and fluffing them into the sort of thing often seen hanging in warm summer skies, he headed downstairs for breakfast, with the word used so loosely, that it had already fallen, tumbled to the bottom of them and was waiting for him by the reception desk covered in bruises. The hotel was not the sort of place he’d order a hot-fin, let alone a meal of food. If it did make hot-fin it would presumably contain lumps so large that it would be better suited to sealing up some of the more draughty gaps in its walls. When he arrived in the lobby, he suspected the closest he might get to breakfast would be the carpet, as it appeared to have had several such meals brought up on it over the years, with the apparent conviction that leaving them there helped its adherence to the floor. While two patrons argued with the dog behind the counter, Oscar feigned indifference by admiring a small print upon the wall nearby. It was only after the patron snatched the newspaper from the blasé paws of the insufferable animal that Oscar realised it was not a print at all, but congealed sick. Because the argument became heated and involved threats of unconventional stapler use, he admired it nonetheless.

  The two patrons stormed from the counter and strode toward the rickety stairs, before thumping up them until their paws broke through its wood-wormed planks. While they swore and struggled to free themselves, the insufferable dog rounded the counter to retrieve his newspaper from where it had been thrown. With admirable indifference, he scanned it while returning to the desk and advising the necessary repairs would be billed to their room. Ignoring their yelps and cries for rope, Oscar stepped to the reception desk, determined not to be riled a second time. “Good morning,” he said, regretting the niceties. “I was wondering if you do breakfast here?”

  As he had the previous evening, the dog ignored Oscar and scanned the paper as proof its contents were far more interesting. When Oscar asked again, the dog did reply, though with an answer so ambiguous it would have benefitted from its own question mark.

  “Sometimes,” the dog said, without looking up.

  When nothing more was forthcoming, Oscar tried prompting him without using a clenched paw. “Can you be a little more specific?”

  It was evident he could not.

  Oscar took hold of the desk again. “Perhaps you didn’t understand the question: I was wondering whether you do breakfast here.”

  There was a slow turning of page. “Sometimes.”

  Oscar had been through a lot over the past few days, and wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was about to go through a great deal more. Consequently, he was not in the mood for insufferable, self-righteous animals whose smugness had evolved solely to prevent them acknowledging their own inadequacies.

  He took a deep breath and asked a third time, “Might sometime be now, perhaps?”

  “No,” said the dog. “I had breakfast earlier.”

  Oscar blinked several times. “I meant breakfast for patrons. Not you.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so?”

  “Because I didn’t think you were so pedantic.”

  The dog looked up from his paper. “And I didn’t think you were so stupid.”

  Oscar gritted several teeth and swallowed the sort of growl best described as antisocial. “Tell me,” he said, un-gritting one of them. “Do you believe that you appear clever when insulting others?”

  “No,” said the dog, returning to his newspaper. “I appear clever because I am.”

  “Appearances mean little.”

  The dog peered over the desk at Oscar’s pantaloons in pointed agreement.

  “Do you like riling your customers?” Oscar asked.

  “It does make the day go faster,” the dog admitted, returning to his paper.

  “So does intensive care.”

  This was met with a distinct yawn.

  Fuming, Oscar said, “Well, I wouldn’t touch any breakfast you might conjure up in this cesspit anyway.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  “To annoy you.”

  The dog humphed from behind the newspaper. “I’m not the one getting all hot under the collar.”

  “Tell me, is that the same paper you were reading two days ago?”

  “No.”

  “Well, the date suggests otherwise.”

  A corner of paper dropped and an eye peered from behind it. “What?”

  “The date,” Oscar said, pointing at it. “There. Your newspaper is three weeks old.”

  The eye zigzagged in rapid thought. “I like to take my time.”

  “Really? Are you certain you can read?”

  The dog returned to doing so, saying, “Tell me: how were the Inaugurate Halls of Liebe?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “Now you’re the one pretending,” the dog growled. “Certainly you weren’t admitted to the place.”

  “I can assure you that I was.”

  The paper was put down and folded. “We have been through this before,” the dog said. “There is no use pretending you are a poet when all evidence insists otherwise.”

  “Interesting. I would say exactly the same about your denial of being a complete fluffing git.”

  The dog sneered a smile and said, “I do not know which is more pitiful: believing yourself to be something you’re not, or having to lie about it to others.”

  “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s not your fault you have to run this dump.”

  “I was referring to you.”

  “Are you certain? I’d reflect on those words if I were you, as they seemed most applicable.”

  They were interrupted by the return of the patrons, who’d escape the shattered stairs and represented themselves at the counter. One was a large dog who banged a paw upon it so hard that he got a splinter, while the other removed shattered pieces of stair from both of them.

  “We are not staying!” the large dog thundered, before turning to Oscar. “And I wouldn’t stay if I were you! This place is appalling! We were going to retrieve our luggage, but decided against it on account of the place being so rickety that our suitcases will presumably plummet through the ceiling by themselves in a moment!” He turned to the dog behind the desk. “And if you add anything to our bill other than a written apology, I shall turn your bottom into a stapler and staple it to your face!” He leant closer, adding, “And I shall use especially large staples!”

  The dog behind the desk remained unimpressed and began unfolded his newspaper to continue reading.

  Oscar glanced up at the furious animal. “Yes, but have you tried their breakfast?” he asked.

  The large dog blinked down at him. “Tried their what?”

  “Their breakfast. I’m trying to see if they do breakfast here. So far I’ve got nothing resembling an answer, which is frustrating because I am hungry and in dire need of a hot-fin.”

  The dog took a breath in order to placate a similarly disenchanted patron. “If they do breakfast here,” he said, glaring at the dog behind the desk, “I wouldn’t go anywhere near it—that’s if they could stop it escaping the plate. Indeed, I suspect it would be more likely to eat you, in fact. Moreover, I suspect their hot-fin would be about as lumpy as this arrogant animal’s face is about to become in a minute.”

  The smaller dog beside him said, “I suspect they did do breakfast here once.” He pointed at the congealed sick upon the wall. “I think that’s some of it there.”

  Oscar glanced at the splatter he’d admired earlier and sighed. He needed a decent breakfast with a well made hot-fin before vault-hunting.

  “There is, however, a place I
know that does brilliant breakfasts with superb hot-fin,” the large dog said. “Unsurprisingly, it’s nowhere near this dump.”

  “Oh?”

  “Here,” said the large dog. “I’ll gladly write it down for you.”

  Leaning across the desk, he snatched the newspaper, which was accompanied with a satisfying tear. Snatching a pen from the desk, he scrawled in unnecessarily large letters, the address across one entire sheet. Putting the pen down, he folded it and offered it to Oscar with the sort of satisfaction that getting up in the morning rarely affords.

  https://www.velvetpawofasquith.com/fear