The business of the Grand Babylon was enormous.

It took Racksole, with all his genius for organization, exactly half an hour to master the details of the hotel laundry-work.
And the laundry-work was but one branch of activity amid scores, and not a very large one at that.

The machinery of checking supplies, and of establishing a mean ratio between the raw stuff received in the kitchen and the number of meals served in the salle a manger and the private rooms, was very complicated and delicate.

When Racksole had grasped it, he at once suggested some improvements, and this led to a long theoretical discussion, and the discussion led to digressions, and then Felix Babylon, in a moment of absent-mindedness, yawned.
Racksole looked at the gilt clock on the high mantelpiece.
'Great Scott!' he said.

'It's three o'clock.