Отель «Гранд Вавилон» / The Grand Babylon hotel

�I suppose you are fairly well off?’ said Racksole, in that easy familiar style of his, as though the idea had just occurred to him.

�Besides what I shall receive from you, I have half a million invested.’

�Then you will be nearly a millionaire?’

Felix Babylon nodded.

�I congratulate you, my dear sir,’ said Racksole, in the tone of a judge addressing a newly-admitted barrister. �Nine hundred thousand pounds, expressed in francs, will sound very nice—in Switzerland.’

�Of course to you, Mr Racksole, such a sum would be poverty.

Now if one might guess at your own wealth?’ Felix Babylon was imitating the other’s freedom.

�I do not know, to five millions or so, what I am worth,’ said Racksole, with sincerity, his tone indicating that he would have been glad to give the information if it were in his power.

�You have had anxieties, Mr Racksole?’

�Still have them. I am now holiday-making in London with my daughter in order to get rid of them for a time.

’

�Is the purchase of hotels your notion of relaxation, then?’

Racksole shrugged his shoulders. �It is a change from railroads,’ he laughed.

�Ah, my friend, you little know what you have bought.’

�Oh! yes I do,’ returned Racksole; �I have bought just the first hotel in the world.’

�That is true, that is true,’ Babylon admitted, gazing meditatively at the antique Persian carpet. �There is nothing, anywhere, like my hotel.

But you will regret the purchase, Mr Racksole. It is no business of mine, of course, but I cannot help repeating that you will regret the purchase.’

�I never regret.’

�Then you will begin very soon—perhaps to-night.’

�Why do you say that?’

�Because the Grand Babylon is the Grand Babylon. You think because you control a railroad, or an iron-works, or a line of steamers, therefore you can control anything. But no. Not the Grand Babylon. There is something about the Grand Babylon—’ He threw up his hands.

�Servants rob you, of course.’

�Of course. I suppose I lose a hundred pounds a week in that way. But it is not that I mean. It is the guests. The guests are too—too distinguished. The great Ambassadors, the great financiers, the great nobles, all the men that move the world, put up under my roof. London is the centre of everything, and my hotel—your hotel—is the centre of London.