Read Online The Graduate by Charles Webb - Free Book Online

Excuse me.”
    The clerk’s hand went under the counter and brought up a key. “Do you have any luggage?” he said.
    “What?”
    “Do you have any luggage?”
    “Luggage,” Benjamin said. “Yes. Yes I do.”
    “Where is it.”
    “What?”
    “Where is your luggage.”
    “Well it’s in the car,” Benjamin said. He pointed across the lobby. “It’s out there in the car.”

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    “Very good, sir,” the clerk said. He held the key up in the air and looked around the lobby. “I’ll have a porter bring it in.”
    “Oh no,” Benjamin said.
    “Sir?”
    “I mean I’d—I’d rather not go to the trouble of bringing it all in. I just have a toothbrush. I can get it myself. If that’s all right.”
    “Of course.”
    Benjamin reached for the key.
    “I’ll have a porter show you the room.”
    “Oh,” Benjamin said, withdrawing his hand. “Well actually I’d just as soon find it myself. I just have the toothbrush to carry up and I think I can handle it myself.”
    “Whatever you say, sir.” The man handed him the key.
    “Thank you.”
    Benjamin walked across the lobby and out through the front doors of the hotel. He watched the doorman open the doors of several cars and a taxi that drove up, then he turned around and went back inside.
    As he passed the clerk he stopped and patted one of the pockets of his coat.
    “Got it,” he said.
    “Sir?”
    “The toothbrush. I got the toothbrush all right.”
    “Oh. Very good, sir.”
    Benjamin nodded. “Well,” he said. “I guess I’ll stop in the bar a minute before going up.”
    “You do whatever you like, sir.”
    “Thank you.”
    Benjamin returned to the Verandah Room. Mrs. Robinson looked up to smile at him when he came to the table.
    “Well,” Benjamin said. “I did it. I got it.”
    “You got us a room.”
    “Yes.”

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    He reached into his pocket for the key. “It’s on the fifth floor,” he said, squinting at the number on the key. “Five hundred and ten it is.”
    “Shall we go up?” Mrs. Robinson said.
    “Oh,” Benjamin said, frowing. “Well I’m afraid there’s a little problem.”
    “Oh?”
    “I got a single.”
    Mrs. Robinson nodded. “That’s all right,” she said.
    “Well that’s all right,” Benjamin said. “But the man at the desk. The clerk. He seemed—he seemed like he might be a little suspicious.”
    “Oh,” she said. “Well do you want to go up alone first?”
    “I think I’d better,” Benjamin said. “And also—also I was wondering if you could wait. Till he’s talking to someone. So he—I mean I signed my own name by mistake and I—”
    “I’ll be careful,” Mrs. Robinson said.
    “I know,” Benjamin said. “But I don’t know what their policy is here. I wouldn’t—”
    “Benjamin?”
    “What.”
    “Will you try and relax please?”
    “Well I’m trying,” Benjamin said. “It’s just that this clerk—he gave me a funny look.”
    “I’ll be up in ten minutes,” Mrs. Robinson said.
    “Ten minutes,” Benjamin said. “Right. I mean—right.” He nodded and hurried away from the table.
    In ten minutes Mrs. Robinson knocked on the door of the room.
    Benjamin had just drawn two large curtains over the window. He hurried across the carpet and pulled open the door for her. They stood looking at each other for a moment, then Benjamin began nodding.
    “I see—I see you found it all right,” he said.
    She smiled at him and walked into the room, looking at a television set in the corner, then at the bed. She removed the small round hat from the top of her head and set it down on a writing desk against one of the walls.

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    “Well,” Benjamin said. He nodded but didn’t say anything more.
    Mrs. Robinson walked slowly back to where he was standing. “Well?”
    she said, looking up into his face.
    Benjamin waited a few moments, then brought one of his hands up to her shoulder. He bent his face down, cleared his throat, and kissed her.