The front-desk clerk was the same man who had checked all of us in on Saturday.

"Is there a hotel manager or front-desk clerk we can ask?"

Or maybe the weary, winsome approach I've been trying to cultivate with front-desk clerks finally paid off.

Room checkout was noon, but the front-desk clerk said we were welcome to make it 3:30, or even later.

"The front-desk clerk gave me the extremely low rate when I checked in on Sunday," he recalled.

It is staffed 24 hours a day, he said, to avoid forcing front-desk clerks to make reservations in addition to their other duties.

Anticipating this moment, I had asked the front-desk clerk that morning about suggestions for a cash-strapped tourist.

He told the front-desk clerk that he was aGerman screenwriter.

When he was offered a job as a front-desk clerk, he decided to snap it up.

The charge stems from an encounter on June 30 with a front-desk clerk at the hotel where he was staying.