Behind Closed Doors

Re: “Travel Horrors� (Oct. 27), here is another: It happened on a Friday night in a hotel in Paris. I had gone to the lobby to get something, and when I returned I was unable to open the door. My wife, Natalie, who was inside, was equally unsuccessful. She called the concierge on the phone, but he failed in his attempt. Then an employee climbed a ladder and entered the room through a window, but he also failed to open it.

A locksmith couldn’t open it either. When I complained that my wife had the bottle of scotch on her side of the door, they obligingly brought me half a glass of the stuff and I settled in an easy chair.

When I awoke, the door had been quite demolished, and my wife and I were reunited. The hotel sent us to a nice restaurant in a taxi, and when we returned, they put us up in the “Victor Hugo� room for the night. The manager said it had never happened before.

WALTER J. FRISCH

Seal Beach