The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett (good story books to read txt) 📕
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When Theodore Racksole—one of the richest men in America, and consequently the world—sits down in London’s Grand Babylon Hotel and orders a beefsteak and a bottle of beer, he isn’t aware that he’s about to become part of a plot involving blackmail, espionage, murder, the royal families of Europe and his daughter Nella. As he’s sucked in to the inner workings of the hotel and its staff he has to make a series of stark choices for the safety of his family and guests.
The Grand Babylon Hotel proceeds at a pace that betrays the novel’s roots: it was originally serialized in 1901 in the Golden Penny. It was Arnold Bennett’s second novel, and was followed by at least forty works of fiction along with numerous plays and non-fiction works. Since its original publication The Grand Babylon Hotel has remained in print, and it has also been adapted for film and radio.
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- Author: Arnold Bennett
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Probably only a very small percentage of them had the least idea that this tall spare man, with the iron-grey hair and the thin, firm, resolute face, who wore his American-cut evening clothes with such careless ease, was the sole proprietor of the Grand Babylon, and possibly the richest man in Europe. As has already been stated, Racksole was not a celebrity in England.
The guests of the Grand Babylon saw merely a restless male person, whose restlessness was rather a disturber of their quietude, but with whom, to judge by his countenance, it would be inadvisable to remonstrate. Therefore Theodore Racksole continued his perambulations unchallenged, and kept saying to himself, “I must do something.” But what? He could think of no course to pursue.
At last he walked straight through the hotel and out at the other entrance, and so up the little unassuming side street into the roaring torrent of the narrow and crowded Strand. He jumped on a Putney bus, and paid his fair to Putney, fivepence, and then, finding that the humble occupants of the vehicle stared at the spectacle of a man in evening dress but without a dustcoat, he jumped off again, oblivious of the fact that the conductor jerked a thumb towards him and winked at the passengers as who should say, “There goes a lunatic.” He went into a tobacconist’s shop and asked for a cigar. The shopman mildly inquired what price.
“What are the best you’ve got?” asked Theodore Racksole.
“Five shillings each, sir,” said the man promptly.
“Give me a penny one,” was Theodore Racksole’s laconic request, and he walked out of the shop smoking the penny cigar. It was a new sensation for him.
He was inhaling the aromatic odours of Eugène Rimmel’s establishment for the sale of scents when a gentleman, walking slowly in the opposite direction, accosted him with a quiet, “Good evening, Mr. Racksole.” The millionaire did not at first recognize his interlocutor, who wore a travelling overcoat, and was carrying a handbag. Then a slight, pleased smile passed over his features, and he held out his hand.
“Well, Mr. Babylon,” he greeted the other, “of all persons in the wide world you are the man I would most have wished to meet.”
“You flatter me,” said the little Anglicized Swiss.
“No, I don’t,” answered Racksole; “it isn’t my custom, any more than it’s yours. I wanted to have a real good long yarn with you, and lo! here you are! Where have you sprung from?”
“From Lausanne,” said Félix Babylon. “I had finished my duties there, I had nothing else to do, and I felt homesick. I felt the nostalgia of London, and so I came over, just as you see,” and he raised the handbag for Racksole’s notice. “One toothbrush, one razor, two slippers, eh?” He laughed. “I was wondering as I walked along where I should stay—me, Félix Babylon, homeless in London.”
“I should advise you to stay at the Grand Babylon,” Racksole laughed back. “It is a good hotel, and I know the proprietor personally.”
“Rather expensive, is it not?” said Babylon.
“To you, sir,” answered Racksole, “the inclusive terms will be exactly half a crown a week. Do you accept?”
“I accept,” said Babylon, and added, “You are very good, Mr. Racksole.”
They strolled together back to the hotel, saying nothing in particular, but feeling very content with each other’s company.
“Many customers?” asked Félix Babylon.
“Very tolerable,” said Racksole, assuming as much of the air of the professional hotel proprietor as he could. “I think I may say in the storekeeper’s phrase, that if there is any business about I am doing it. Tonight the people are all on the terrace in the portico—it’s so confoundedly hot—and the consumption of ice is simply enormous—nearly as large as it would be in New York.”
“In that case,” said Babylon politely, “let me offer you another cigar.”
“But I have not finished this one.”
“That is just why I wish to offer you another one. A cigar such as yours, my good friend, ought never to
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