It was a great tragedy when the Lodge burned to the ground. The brothers were having a new lodge built, but in the interim, they had no place to go for regular meetings or degree work. One of the brothers owned a hotel and figured they could use the conference room in his hotel for their meetings. They agreed and met there regularly. Four months pass and a traveling salesman is passing through town and decides to stay at the hotel. As luck would have it, he was checking in on one of the lodge meeting nights. He spied the men in white aprons filing into the conference room and asked the deskclerk, "I say, are those freemasons?" The clerk replied that they were and explained about the lodge burning down and the subsequent use of the hotel for meetings. "Well, said the salesman, "I've been thinking about joining. Do you think it's hard to do so?" The clerk shrugged, "I'd say it's pretty tough. You see that guy standing by the door with a sword? Well, he's been knocking on that door for four months now and they still won't let him in."
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