Hotel Woodley

Hotel Woodley is a shabby theatrical hotel on Forty-seventh Street, introduced as one of the places Willie Keith turns to when trying to reach May Wynn. It is not shown as the setting of their reunion: instead, the hotel connects them by telephone, first frustrating Willie’s attempt to speak with her and later enabling him to arrange a possible meeting. Its brief appearances place May within a theatrical world and mark Willie’s effort to maintain contact as he faces the consequences of the mutiny.

Setting and Identification

The narration identifies Hotel Woodley as a shabby theatrical hotel on Forty-seventh Street. That concise description gives the place a distinct social character: it is associated with theatrical work and lodging rather than with the domestic life Willie knows. The hotel is not described at length, and the text does not establish that it is May’s permanent home. Its importance comes instead from its practical function as a place where she can be reached.

The distinction matters because Willie’s other contact attempt leads him first to a candy store in the Bronx, where a woman gives him the Woodley’s number. The episode traces a small but consequential route through separate addresses: the Bronx call does not reach May, but it directs Willie onward to the hotel. The narrative gives the Woodley a recognizable identity before showing its role in his search.

Willie’s First Call

Willie makes the first call while staying with his family after the events aboard the USS Caine. Mrs. Keith has just reassured him that she will seek advice about his court-martial, and Willie then takes an extension telephone from her bedroom and connects it in his own room. He calls the candy store, receives the Woodley number, and asks the hotel operator for May Wynn.

The exchange stops short of the contact he wants. After repeated buzzes, a man answers rather than May. Willie asks for May’s room again, and the narration registers his apprehension as a “horrid qualm.” The unanswered question of who has picked up is left unresolved in this scene; the text does not identify the male voice. For Willie, the call turns the hotel from a promising address into a source of sudden unease. He has found the right place to ask for May, but not yet a direct line to her.

A Call Before His Return

The Woodley reappears when Willie is preparing to leave for the USS Caine and the impending court-martial. On Saturday night, while dressing to go to the opera, he notices his watch and realizes that he will be returning the next morning. His arm reaches for the telephone stiffly, “like a lever in an automatic phonograph,” and he calls the hotel.

This time May answers. Their brief conversation establishes that her cold is gone and that she is working that night. Willie tells her he is going back the next morning and wants to talk; when she says she is working, he asks whether he may come to the club. The scene ends with the request, not with a reported visit, so the text leaves the outcome of this proposed meeting open. The call nevertheless changes the immediate prospect: after the earlier male answer and Willie’s apprehension, he has now spoken with May directly and made an effort to see her before leaving.

Narrative Function

The hotel’s two appearances frame a shift from failed access to direct conversation. In the first, Willie must follow a number from the Bronx and encounters a stranger’s voice; in the second, with his return only hours away, May herself answers. The Woodley therefore serves less as a fully developed setting than as a threshold in the couple’s communication: a theatrical address through which an intimate connection is attempted, interrupted, and resumed.

That contact takes place under pressure. Willie’s first call follows Mrs. Keith’s assurances about the legal danger ahead, while the later call is prompted by his awareness that he will soon be back aboard the USS Caine. The hotel links his unresolved relationship with May to the immediate demands of his naval life without resolving either one. Its narrative significance rests in that limited but pointed role: it is where Willie reaches toward May at the very moment separation and uncertainty are closing in.