JEWELED BOX
HELD CIGARETTES.
DINERS IN HOTEL BALTIMORE
CAFE GIVEN A SHOCK.
WOMAN BREAKS
HOUSE RULES.
SMOKE WREATHS THAT CHECK
BUZZ OF CONVERSATION.
Waiters, in Panic, Appeal to House
Detective, and He Tells Inof-
fensive Citizen That Wife
Mustn't Smoke There.
A faultlessly dressed couple occupied seats at a table in the main dining room of the Hotel Baltimore cafe last night. It was plain to be seen that they were English.
The dining room was well filled with men and women. The orchestra was playing a piece in waltz time. Jewels gleamed beneath the many lights.
Suddenly the buzz of conversation died away. All eyes in the dining room became centered upon the table where sat the English man and English woman.
With graceful ease the woman had extracted a cork-tipped cigarette from an exquisitely jeweled case and lifted it to her lips with dainty fingers. A moment more and a thin wreath of smoke curled above her head and -- Kansas City received its first touch of the Continent and the Orient.
What to do?
The whites of the eyes of the waiters grew larger, whispered words passed over the adjoining tables and the orchestra played on.
The waiter at the table where sat the English hurried to the side of the head waiter. Everybody except the man and the woman watched the conference of waiters. The cause of the commotion apparently saw nothing of what was transpiring about them. The head waiter hurried to the lobby. He conferred with the house detective.
"Sure," said the detective. "I'll fix that."
The head waiter returned to the dining room. He looked as though he had just received a liberal tip. The diners eagerly awaited the outcome.
They were not kept long in suspense. Soon the form of the house detective loomed large in the doorway. He really looked the imposing majesty of the law as he crossed the threshold. The head waiter moved his head to one side. The detective veered his course in that direction. Then he did the most detective like thing imaginable. He walked up to a well-known private citizen of American extraction who, with his wife, had just finished a light meal and said:
"I wish you wouldn't let your wife smoke in here. It's against the house rules."
Did the private citizen laugh? Indeed he did not. He didn't even smile over the detective's blunder. What he said was direct and to the point, and when he had finished saying it the house sleuth apologized and cast his eagle eye over the dining room for the real offender. Then he made the same request of the Englishman that he made of the professional man. There was a hearty:
"All right -- very sorry -- we didn't know it was against the rules."
And that ended it. The lights still shone brightly, diamonds glistened, the orchestra passed from adante doloroso to allegro furioso.
The Englishman was Mr. C. Murray, secretary of the colonial office, London, and the lady was his wife.
"It was embarrassing," said Mr. Murray afterwards. "We didn't intend to break any of the house rules and when the man came to me and asked my wife to desist she did so at once. I asked the man if it was against the law of your country for a lady to smoke in a dining room. He said it was not, but that it was against the house rules."
Secretary Murray said it was the custom for ladies to smoke in public dining rooms in London and nothing was thought of it. This is his first visit to America.
Secretary Murray said his wife is prominently connected in England, but declined to divulge her name before her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Murray have been traveling through Mexico.
"We have been over your city," said the secretary, "and I consider it a well laid out city, capable of great extension and a very progressive metropolis, but," he added, "you have not progressed to the point where ladies are allowed the freedom that they are in the old country."
Mr. and Mrs. Murray will depart for Chicago this evening.
