Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/52

 before heard of breweries owning hotels The Royal is very modest in its charges; we pay ten shillings and sixpence per day each for accommodations. This means $2.62 a day for room, three regular meals, early morning tea, and supper at 10 And the hotel is really good; I do not care for anything better, although the rooms are old-fashioned, and the elevator does not work half the time. When you want anything, you step into the hall and push a button marked Maid's Bell. When the maid appears, you order hot water for shaving, or whatever it may be you need. There are four bath-rooms near my room, which include needle and douche baths. The New-Zealanders are fond of bathing, and there is never a lack of bath-rooms in their hotels I have before referred to the fact that women out here wear afternoon and evening dresses in the morning; I believe I would have noticed the custom had not Adelaide called my attention to it. When the ship landed this morning, a pretty woman we admired, dressed in white satin and white kid slippers for the occasion On our way up-town, we passed a store labeled the Clobbery. The stock seemed to consist of gents' furnishing goods. Perhaps an English friend can tell you where the word Clobbery comes from; I never heard of it before After dinner, we walked about the streets of Auckland. Adelaide wore what is known at home as a "Peter Thompson suit," and it attracted so much attention that I asked her to return to the hotel and change it. There were great crowds on the streets, and they seemed to think Adelaide was a member of a lady brass band of which I was director. She took off