Checking Out the Scene at a Luxury Hotel : THE HOTEL: Backstairs at the World’s Most Exclusive Hotel by Jeffrey Robinson; Arcade Publishing; $24.95, 320 pages

“Mark Twain once professed that all saints can do miracles, but few of them can keep a hotel,” writes Jeffrey Robinson in “The Hotel.” He proceeds to prove the point by taking us “backstairs” at one of the world’s most celebrated hostelries, Claridge’s in London, and showing how a luxury hotel actually works (or, on rare occasions, doesn’t work).

The author gamely tries to introduce some dramatic tension into “The Hotel” by posing the question of whether the newly recruited general manager of the hotel, an elegant Frenchman named Francois Touzin, will succeed in bringing Claridge’s into modernity and, not incidentally, profitability.

“The hotel was criticized in the press as being a relic, old-fashioned to the point of being archaic, tradition-bound to the point of being stodgy,” writes Robinson. But the old hands at the hotel were skeptical: “You can’t change the hotel,” they warned him. “The hotel will change you.”

A kind of subplot focuses on a state visit to London by the president of South Korea, whose stay at the hotel turns into a comedy of errors and manners. Sixteen rooms are booked by the British Foreign Office, but when the president shows up, his entourage requires 83 more. The Sony television set in the presidential quarters must be replaced by one of Korean manufacture. All dishes prepared for the president must be served in two portions, one for the president and one for his food taster.

“Touzin wondered if tasters could get life insurance,” cracks the author, “but decided it might not be prudent to ask.”

Inevitably, there’s a faint echo of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” in “The Hotel,” and the author glories in revealing the gracious little extras that Claridge’s extends to its guests. A computer database permits the hotel to identify the guests “who hated carnations but loved orchids, and the guests who wanted blue tissues in the bathroom, never pink or white.” If a regular guest insists on sleeping in an east-west position only, Claridge’s knows in advance and makes sure the bed is properly oriented. Still, there is simply no way to please every guest.

“Some people in the hotel business claim they sell sex,” writes the author. “In reality, they sell sleep.”

Celebrities ranging from Nikita Khrushchev to Clint Eastwood have bunked down in the Royal Suite at a minimum room rate of 2,000 British pounds a night. Genuine royals from all over Europe, on the other hand, are welcomed at Claridge’s at a discounted room rate. Perhaps more telling is the fact that some celebrities--”from actors to pop stars, from teen heart-throbs to heavyweight champions”--are routinely turned away if the management fears that they might “detract from the quiet and discreet nature of the hotel.”

To the author’s credit, he makes an earnest effort to show how Claridge’s actually functions from hour to hour, day to day. Touzin personally attends to the guest who complains because there is no honey to accompany the porridge on his breakfast tray. The search for a supply of potatoes that will properly crisp up in the fryer is an annual crisis. As Touzin enters the ornate Georgian lobby, he comes up behind the concierge, presses one finger into the man’s back, and whispers “Stick ‘em up”--a jocular way of admonishing the concierge for committing the faux pas of turning his back to the front door of the hotel.

What we discover in “The Hotel” is that even a place so rich in history and tradition as Claridge’s survives on well-heeled but wholly unremarkable guests who are willing to drop several hundred dollars a night on a place to sleep.