WELL, another kick I got on the abvolition of ' the barroom is the fact that you got to stay around home so much and that naturally leads to having a row with your wife.
When there was barrooms my wife used to jaw me every time I come home anyways lit up and I just let her jaw me and there wasn't any row for I figured better let her get away with it who knows maybe she thinks she is right about it.
But now I stick around home a good deal of the time and it leads to words.
Well, she says to me, why don't you go and get a job of work of some kind.
Well, I tell her, mind your own business I always been a good pervider ain't I. You have got five or six children working for you ain't you and a man that pervides his wife with five or six children to work for her is not going to listen to no back talk.
Well, she says, you ought to be ashamed to loaf around home all the time.
Well, I says, I'm thinking up a big business deal but that's the way with women they never understand they got to keep their mouth shut and give a man peace and quiet to do his thinking in so he can make them a good living all they think about is newfangled ways to spend the money after he has slaved himself half to death making it.
Well, she says, I ain't seen you slaving any lately.
Well, I tells her, I done all my hard slaving when I was young and I got a little money coming in right along from them two houses I own, and I ain't going to work myself into the grave for no extravagant woman, and me with a heart pappitation you can hear half a mile on a clear day.
Well, she says, what rent money them two houses brings in don't any more than pay for the booze you drink.
Well, I says, you Prohibitionists done that to me. You went and made it plumb impossible to get good liquor for any reasonable price. That there rent money used to pay for three times the booze I drink.
Well, she says, you oughta get a job.
If I was to tie myself down to a job, I tells her, what chance would I have to trade and dicker around and make little turnovers, let alone thinking up this big business deal I am working on.
You are a liar, she said, and if I knowed where your whiskey was hid I'd bust every bottle and what kind of a business deal are you thinking up.
It is an invention I says to her and you mind your own business just because I have stood for you intrupting me for forty years is no sign I am going to stand for it forty years more.
You can quit any time she says and good riddance the children will keep me and there will be one less to cook for besides being ashamed of you before all my own friends and the nice people the children know.
Well, I said, here I set turning over the leaves of the Bible and you attack me that way and me trying to think up a business deal to buy you an automobile and the pappitation in my heart that bad it shakes the chair I am setting in and if a man with one foot in the grave can't get any peace and quiet to read his Bible in his own home against the time he is going to cash in then I will say that Prohibition has brought this country to a pretty pass.
Well, she says, what is that pappitation from but all the liquor you drunk.
It is from my constitution, I says, as the doctor will tell you if it hadn't been for a little mite of stimulant now and then I would of cashed in long ago and you would now have the life insurance money.
Well, she says, what kind of an invention is this you claim you are thinking up all the time?
Yes, I says, I would see myself telling you, wouldn't I and you blabbing it the next time a lot of them church women meets at our house and some old church deacon getting hold of it and getting rich off of it and me wandering the streets in destitution with the rain running down often my beard and the end of my nose because you and the children cast me into the street.
Well, she says, where is that thousand dollars that my uncle Lemuel willed to me and I give it to you for one of them inventions nearly thirty years ago and never seen hide nor hair on it since then.
Well, I says, that thousand dollars is gone and it went the same way as that money I loaned to your cousin Dan when he failed in business and would of starved to death him and his family if I hadn't come across with the cash that is where that thousand dollars is.
Well, that's the way it goes, until I get tired of trying to make her see any sense and sneak out to where my stuff is hid and fill me a pint bottle for my hip pocket and go and find a friend somewheres.
And in just that way Prohibition is breaking up millions and millions of homes every day.
CHRISTMAS,” said the Old Soak, “will soon be here. But me, I ain't going to look at it. I ain't got the heart to face it. I'm going to crawl off and make arrangements to go to sleep on the twenty-third of December and not wake up until the second of January.
“Them that is in favour of a denaturized Christmas won't be interfered with by me. I got no grudge against them. But I won't intrude any on them, either. They can pass through the holidays in an orgy of sobriety, and I'll be all alone in my own little room, with my memories and a case of Bourbon to bear me up.
“I never could look on Christmas with the naked eye. It makes me so darned sad, Christmas does. There's the kids... I used to give 'em presents, and my tendency was to weep as I give them. 'Poor little rascals,' I said to myself, 'they think life is going to be just one Christmas tree after another, but it ain't.' And then I'd think of all the Christmases past I had spent with good friends, and how they was all gone, or on their way. And I'd think of all the poor folks on Christmas, and how the efforts made for them at that season was only a drop in the bucket to what they'd need the year around. And along about December twenty-third I always got so downhearted and sentimental and discouraged about the whole darned universe I nearly died with melancholy.
“In years past, the remedy was at hand. A few drinks and I could look even Christmas in the face. A few more and I'd stand under the mistletoe and sing, 'God rest ye merry, gentlemen.' And by the night of Christmas day I had kidded myself into thinking I liked it, and wanted to keep it up for a week.
“But this Christmas there ain't going to be any general iniquity used to season the grand religious festival with, except among a few of us Old Soaks that has it laid away. I ain't got the heart to look on all the melancholy critters that will be remembering the drinks they had last year. And I ain't going to trot my own feelings out and make 'em public, neither. No, sir. Me, I'm going to hibernate like a bear that goes to sleep with his thumb in his mouth. Only it won't be a thumb I have in my mouth. My house will be full of children and grandchildren, and there will be a passel of my wife's relations that has always boosted for Prohibition, but any of 'em ain't going to see the old man. I won't mingle in any of them debilitated festivities. I ain't any Old Scrooge, but I respect the memory of the old-time Christmas, and I'm going to have mine all by myself, the melancholy part of it that comes first, and the cure for the melancholy. This country ain't worthy to share in my kind of a Christmas, and I ain't so much as going to stick my head out of the window and let it smell my breath till after the holidays is over. I got presents for all of 'em, but none of 'em is to be allowed to open the old man's door and poke any presents into his room for him. They ain't worthy to give me presents, the people in general in this country ain't, and I won't take none from them. They might 'a' got together and stopped this Prohibition thing before it got such a start, but they didn't have the gumption. I've seceded, I have. And if any of my wife's Prohibition relations comes sniffin' and smellin' around my door, where I've locked myself in, I'll put a bullet through the door. You hear me! And I'll know who's sniffin', too, for I can tell a Prohibitionist sniff as fur as I can hear it.
“I got a bar of my own all fixed up in my bedroom and there's going to be a hot water kettle near by it and a bowl of this here Tom and Jerry setting onto it as big as life.
“And every time I wake up I'll crawl out of bed and say to myself: 'Better have just one more.'
“'Well, now,' myself will say to me, 'just one! I really hadn't orter have that one; I've had so many—but just one goes.'
“And then we'll mix it right solemn and pour in the hot water, standing there in front of the bar, with our foot onto the railing, me and myself together, and myself will say to me:
“'Well, old scout, you better have another afore you go. It's gettin' right like holiday weather outside.'
“'I hadn't really orter,' I will say to myself again, 'but it's a long time to next holidays, ain't it, old scout? And here's all the appurtenances of the season to you, and may it sing through your digestive ornaments like a Christmas carol. Another one, Ed.'
“And then I'll skip around behind the bar and play I was Ed, the bartender, and say, 'Are they too sweet for you, sir?'
“And then I'll play I was myself again and say, 'No, they ain't, Ed. They're just right. Ask that feller down by the end of the bar, Ed, to join us. I know him, but I forget his name.'
“And then I'll play I was the feller and say I hadn't orter have another but I will, for it's always fair weather when good fellows gets together.
“And then me and myself and that other feller will have three more, because each one of us wants to buy one, and then Ed the bartender will say to have one on the house. And then I'll go to sleep again and hibernate some more. And don't you call me out of that there room till along about noon on the second day of January. I'll be alone in there with my joy and my grief and all them memories.”
ANOTHER thing wrong with Prohibition that will one day make them sorry they passed that commandment onto the constitution is the way it will bring liquor in front of the growing children and if the children learns to drink it too young what will become of this country I would like to know when the next war comes along.
I guess they didn't think of that, all these here wise Johnnies when they passed that law.
When you used to get all you wanted in a barroom you went there for it and the children didn't see you and they couldn't go into them places and it wasn't sticking around under the children's noses at home all the time making them ask Pa what do you need with so much of that medicine and can I have some Pa.
But now you have it at home and it is sticking under their noses all the time and the chances are millions and millions of children will learn to drink too soon just because it is sticking under their noses all the time and that is what Prohibition is doing for this country for everyone knows if they drink it too soon it will stunt their growths.
It is a great responsibility to bring up children right and Godfearing and be sure they say their lay me down to sleep every night like the Good Book says they should, and what I want to know is why this government don't help the parents and fathers with all them responsibilities instead of being a stumbling block in their way and putting liquor in the home where the growing children will smell it all the time and if they smell it they will want some of it.
Of course a young feller has got to learn to drink some time but there is such a thing as learning too young and it stunts their growth and the good book says keep it out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.
Maybe a little beer is all right if a baby is puny to fatten him up but I never give my children any hard liquor till they had their growth and I got no use for a government that turns in and puts liquor in the home to make drunkards out of the little innocent children.
Maybe if a child has got a cold a little whiskey is good for him and what is left in the bottom of the glass when their dad is done with it if they put some sugar and water in it and play they are like Pa won't hurt none of them any and will help make them so they can hold their share when they get growed up, but that is different from forcing it down their poor little innocent throats all the time and every day, which is what that Prohibition commandment amounts to.
I knowed a child once in a fambly where they thought it was smart to let him have some hard liquor and he growed up with goggle eyes and all rickety from it and took to smoking these here cheap cigarettes and it was a shame as any person with any heart a tall would have said and does this government want the whole future generation of posterity to grow up goggle eyed and rickety like that by forcing liquor into the home and where will they get their strong soldiers from in the next war.
I will say they got no conscience to do a thing like that to the whole passel of children waiting to grow up and go to be soldiers.
It is enough to make any honest man stop and think and his heart bleed when he thinks of all them millions and millions of innocent children and the way they are being ruined with liquor in the home and maybe helping their daddies make it with yeast and raisins and things and cornmeal in the cellar.
I teached my boys to drink in the barroom just as fast as they growed up and teached them to tell good liquor from bad liquor and not to mix their drinks and not to go in for fancy drinks and to drink along with me for a comfort for my old age and a father had ought to make chums of his boys like that and give them the right example and they stay close to him and he knows what they are thinking about and can give them good advice and my boys has been a comfort to me.
My boys is all growed up, but what worries me is the millions and millions of little children that is going to learn to drink too young.
Well, in my next chapter I promise to get down to brass tacks and tell just exactly what those barrooms was like that has been vanished.
NO, SIR,” said the Old Soak, “I ain't got so darned much left. It may get me through a year, and it may run me only about ten months.
“But I don't want so much as I use to, for some reason. In course, no gentleman of the old school figgers on less than a quart a day, but there has been times when I exceeded that there limit. Looking back on them times, I don't know whether to be glad or sorry. It's a satisfaction to remember that I had the liquor, but it's a grief to know I won't never have that same liquor again.
“But at a quart a day, if I'm careful, and don't give any parties to new acquaintances that is took sudden with a love and admiration for me, I'll toddle along fer ten or twelve months yet. And by that time, something or other will happen in my favour; you see if it don't. Either the country will backslide into iniquity again in spots; or else somebody will die and leave me an island down near Cuba; or else Old Jabe Potter, my friend out on Long Island I told you of, will get his smuggling works started into operation.
“Fact is, Old Jabe is already set, and his smuggling works is ready to operate right now, only there don't seem to be nothin' to smuggle, Jabe says. He's got one of these here gasolene boats, and he goes out and makes signals to the ocean liners to and from Europe, but they ain't onto Jabe's signals, or something. I tell him he's got to make arrangements in advance with some of them transatlantic bartenders, for they don't know what he's driving at. 'Well,' Jabe says, 'you'd think they could tell by my looks I'm thirsty, wouldn't you?' Jabe, he's romantic and optimistic; but them notions of his is all right if they was only organized.”
He paused a while, refreshed himself from his pocket flask, and then took up another line of enquiry.
“What I would like to know,” he said, “is what mean folks is going to blame their meanness onto, now that booze is gone. It used to be a good excuse for a lot of people that wasn't worth nothin', and knowed it, and acted ornery... booze was the answer, everybody said. If they did anything they hadn't orter, people said they was all right except when they had a drink or two, but a drink or two changed their entire disposition, and the drink orter be blamed, and not them. My own observation and belief leads me to remark that them kind of folks was less ornery and mean when they had booze than when they didn't have it.
“Well, I notice in myself a kind of a habit growing up to blame everything onto Prohibition, just as Prohibitionists used to blame everything onto booze. I want to be fair to the drys, and I will say that neither Prohibition nor booze has much to do with making a mean man mean. I want to be fair to the drys, so as to show them up; they ain't fair to me, and when I'm fair to them it shows how superior I be.”
WELL, I promised I would tell just what those vanished barrooms was like, and I will tell the truth, so help me.
One thing that I can't get used to going without is that long brass railing where you would rest your feet, and I have got one of them fixed up in my own bedroom now so when I get tired setting down I can go and stand up and rest my feet one at a time.
Well, you would come in in the morning and you would say, Ed, I ain't feeling so good this morning.
I wonder what could the matter be, Ed says, though he has got a pretty good idea of what it could be all the time. But he's too kind hearted to let on.
I don't know, you says to Ed, I guess I am smoking too much lately. When you left here last night, Ed says, you seemed to be feeling all right, maybe what you got is a little touch of this here influenza.
It ain't influenza, Ed, you says to him, it is them heavy cigars we was all smoking in here last night. I swallered too much of that smoke, Ed, and I got a headache this morning and my stomach feels kind o' like it was a democratic stomach all surrounded by republican voters, and a lot of that tobacco must of got into my eyes and I feel so rotten this morning that when my wife said are you going downtown without your breakfast I just said to her Hell and walked out to dodge a row because I could see she was bad tempered this morning.
What would you say to a little absinthe, says Ed, sympathetic and helpful, a cocktail or frappy.
No, says you, if you was to say what I used to say, I leave that there stuff to these here young cigarettesmoking squirts, which it always tasted like paregoric to me.
Yes, sir, Ed says, it is one of them foreign things, and how about a milk punch, it is sometimes soothing when a person has smoked too much.
No, Ed, you says, a milk punch is too much like vittles and I can't stand the idea of vittles.
Yes, sir, Ed used to say, you are right, sir, how about a gin fizz. A gin fizz will bring back your stomach to life right gradual, sir, and not with a shock like being raised from the dead.
Ed, you says to him, or leastways I always used to say, a silver fizz is too gentle, and one of them golden fizzes, with the yellow of an egg in it, has got the same objections as a milk punch, it is too much like vittles.
Yes, sir, Ed says, I think you are right about vittles. I can understand how you feel about not wanting vittles in the early part of the day. And that makes you love Ed, for you meet a lot of people who can't understand that. There ain't no sympathy and understanding left in the world since bartenders was abolished.
How about an old-fashioned whiskey cocktail, says Ed.
You feel he is getting nearer to it, and you tell him so, but it don't seem just like the right thing yet.
And then Ed sees you ain't never going to be satisfied with nothing till after it is into you and he takes the matter into his own hands.
I know what is the matter with you, he says, and what you want, and he mixes you up a whiskey sour and you get a little cross and say it helped some but there was too much sugar in it and not to put so much sugar in the next one.
And by the time you drink the third one, somewhere away down deep inside of you there is a warm spot wakes up and kind of smiles.
And that is your soul has waked up.
And you sort of wish you hadn't been so mean with your wife when you left home, and you look around and see a friend and have one with him and your soul says to you away down deep inside of you for all you know about them old Bible stories they may be true after all and maybe there is a God and kind of feel glad there may be one, and if your friend says let's go and have some breakfast you are surprised to find out you could eat an egg if it ain't too soft or ain't too done.
Well, I promised, so help me, I would tell the truth about them barrooms that has perished away, and the truth I will tell, and the truth with me used to be that more than likely it wasn't really cigars that used to get me feeling that way in the mornings, and I will take up a different part of the subject in my next chapter.
PROHIBITION,” said the Old Soak, “is doing more harm than you can see with the naked eye. Formerly when a man called up and told his wife that he was detained at his office by an unexpected caller on business just as he was starting home his wife knew he had stopped to take three or four balls with the boys on the corner and thought very little about it. Now she wonders if that unexpected caller could have been a lady.
“When a man came home late with the smell of liquor on his breath he knew he was in bad, but he knew just how bad in he was. Now everything is uncertainty and guesswork everywhere, and intellects is cracking under strains on all sides.
“It must 'a' been the same way back in the historic days of iniquity and antiquity, when the Roman Empire switched all of a sudden from being heathen to being Christian; everybody had to be good all of a sudden, and only a few had learnt how; and everybody that hadn't quite succeeded in turning Christian went around for a while wondering if everybody else was as gosh-darned Christian as they let on to be. I know a lot of people now that says they're on the wagon, but I'd hate to go so sound asleep in a street car that I wouldn't wake up if they tried to pull my flask out of my pocket. I don't struggle none trying to be good, myself. I'm a dipsomaniac, and I know it, and I'm contented to be that way.
“Years ago I used to struggle, and think maybe I would quit drinking some time, and it kept me unhappy. But as soon as I come right out and acknowledged Booze as my boss and master, and set him up and crowned him king, a great peace fell onto me, and I ceased to struggle, and I been happy and contented and full of love for my fellow men ever since. There ain't nothing like finding out which gang you belong to and sticking to your own crowd consistent. If I had only been brought up to be a drunkard when I was young I would 'a' settled into it natural and been saved a lot of worry and struggle and uncertainty. But there was years when I fit against it, from time to time, and it kept me unsettled and discontented, and I wasted a lot of good time trying to keep sober when I might 'a' been drunk and cheerful, radiating joy and happiness into the world and being of some use to my fellow men. But I s'pose everybody thinks if they had their life to live over again they'd do different, and the main thing is to reach peace and contentment toward the end, as I have reached it.”
WELL, as I said in my last chapter, it is time for me to get down to brass tacks and describe just what those barrooms that has been vanished was like so that future generations of posterity will know what they missed, and to tell the truth in all particulars, so help me.
Some of them was that arted up with hand paintings that if you had all them paintings in your home you would feel proud of yourself, like Solomon in all his glory, and would feel like you was living in the midst of a high art museum, and the shining brass cuspidores to spit in and the brass rail and all them shiny glasses and bottles and mirrors made up a scene of grandeur and glory like the good book mentions and you would think you was King Faro of Egypt, if you lived in the midst of all that or Job in all his riches before the itch broke out on him.
Well, speaking of the Good Book, my wife has always been more or less of a prohibitionist in order to show me that she is independent of me, and one day one of these here church friends of hers tries to tell me all the liquor that was drinked in the Bible wasn't nothing but unfermented grape juice.
Yes, it was, I said, don't you believe it was, like hell it was. You go and get your testament and see where King Solomon talks about the stuff that makes the heart merry and then go and swill yourself with grape juice and see if you could get the way he was when he wrote eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow ye die. And how about the time them two women came to him with that one child and both claimed that it was hern and he says to the officer on duty, let me see that there sword of yourn for a minute I'll darned soon see who this kid belongs to. And verily the officer drawed his sword and the King he heaved it up and was about to cut the kid in two when one of the women says to stop unhand him King and not do the rash act it is the other woman's yew lamb and let her have it, it being her own all the time and her one yew lamb and her preferring to see the other woman grab it off than have half of it.
Well, says the King, half a loaf is better than no bread, but with infants it is different, take the child, it is yours woman, and go and sin no more.
Well, now, I ask you, was King Solomon drinking the unfermented juice of the grape when he got that there hunch, or was he not? I will say he was not. Them radical and righteous ideas never come to a man when he is cold sober. He has got to have a shot of something moving around under his belt before he gets thataway.
And how about them Bible hangovers, I said to this here church person. Man and boy I been a student of the Bible from cover to cover for a good many years now and I never seen a book with more evidences of hangovers and katzenjammers into it. How about that there book that says vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Well, I ask you, did you ever get that way in the morning after you had spent the night before drinking the unfermented juice of the grape.
That there Book of Exclusiastics is just one long howl from the next morning head. Things seem right, says old Exclusiastic, and they look right; but if you bite into them they don't taste right, or words to that effect. And you stick around awhile, says old man Exclusiastic, and you'll darned soon see they ain't nothing right nowhere and never will be again. Moreover, says he, I was wrong when I used to think things was right; there ain't never anything anywhere been all right and I was all wrong when I was a young feller and used to think things was right and the wrongest thing about the whole business is the darned fools like I used to be who go around saying things is all right, and the sum and substance of everything is vanity, says he, vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
You could tell some folks that that there old Exclusiastic was writing as the result of unfermented grape juice, but a man with any experience of his own knows a good deal better and what kind of a taste was in his mouth. You can't tell an old Bible reader like me anything about this unfermented stuff. The trouble with these here church people is that too many of them ain't never read the Bible, or if they did read it they read it with the idea that it was saying something else like they wanted it to say.
I always stuck to the Bible in spite of the church folks and I always will for it has got some kick into it. There is three things in the world I always stick to, the Bible and hard liquor and calomel, for they has got the kick to them. You can have all your light wines and unfermented stuff and all your pretty new-thought religions and all your new-fangled medicines you want to, but for me I will stick to the Old Testament and corn whiskey and calomel like my forefathers done before me. You can't pull any of that unfermented stuff on me and get away with it.
THE Old Soak came in to see us during the recent Presidential campaign.
“What I expected has come to pass,” he said, sorrowfully. “This here Cox that everybody hoped was a Wet Prohibitionist ain't that at all. He ain't nothin' but a Dry Liquor Man. I been a Republican ever sense the days of Abraham Lincoln, but I had an idee this year I was goin' to have fer to leave the old party flat on account o' rumours I hearn that this here Cox was comin' out for liquor. My conscience is Republican, but my religion is liquor; an' I would of voted agin any conscience fer the sake o' my religion. But I ain't goin' to be compelled fer to make that sacrifice. I'd ruther vote fer an outan'-out Prohibitionist than one of these here fellers that gits the word passed private to the wets that they'll be a stick in the lemonade, and gets the word passed private to the drys that what he means is nothin' but a stick o' pep'mint candy. They ain't no hope fer liquor in public life no more; it has become a question fer the home. As fur es my own private stock is concerned, it mostly ain't. But I got a grand idee workin' up. My old woman's got a niece who's come to live with us, an' I'm tryin' to marry that there gal to a revenue agent. I see by the papers they are always trackin' down a couple thousand gallons somewheres or other, and I don't hear no glass crashin' nowheres to indicate where them bottles is bein' busted. I wants somebody in the fambly that will take me along on some of these here raids I read about.”
WELL, when I seen all them men shovelling snow and ice in the streets and no place to go for a drink and maybe one of them spring thaws coming along soon now which they are always full of these here la grip germs I says to myself them Prohibitionists think they have done something pretty smart but they got another think coming to them.
I never been much of a hand to kick against the weather. As a fact, I use to like all kinds of weather as it come along.
You went into a place and you said to Ed it looks like one of them cold rains is going to start up pretty soon, Ed.
Yes, sir, Ed says, it is pretty raw. The wind is rawring. What will you have?
Well, I use to say, I was wondering about a little Scotch with boiling water into it and a lump of butter and a lump of sugar into it I knowed a fellow used to treat himself thataway one time.
No, sir, says Ed, I wouldn't advise anything like that sir, it will get you sweating inside of you all around your stomach and lungs and then you will go out and swallow some cold damp air and take one of them inside colds, sir, and it may run into new-monia or this here pellicanitis.
Well, Ed, I don't want to ketch none of them germs, you would say to him, and how about some rock and rye.
You better stick to straight rye and leave out the rock. When you was in here a little bit ago you was drinking straight rye and you don't want to be mixing them too much, says Ed.
And no sooner said than done.
Or maybe it was summer time and a hot day and you would say to Ed I wonder how many people is getting sun struck to-day, Ed.
A good many says Ed they drink too much cold water and it gets to them.
I am glad I don't have to go out into the awful heat, you would say.
The main thing is to keep your pores open says Ed for if you stop the presspiration that means a sun stroke. The main thing is to encourage the presspiration to sweat itself out of you.
I think you are right Ed you says and I was wondering about some beer.
No, sir, not for you, says Ed, I wouldn't advise no beer. You put these here temperance drinks like beer and sassperiller into your stomach, sir, and it takes up a lot of room you will wish you had later in the day. For some people I would say beer wouldn't do no harm, sir, but I should say, sir, that it was the wrong thing for you.
One of them long silver fizzes with ice shook up into it would sound nice to my ears as it went down my oozlygoozlum you would say to Ed.
Ed he is kind of lazy with the heat and he don't want to shake it up so he says to you on a hot day like this you are taking chances with your life every time you put ice drinks into you and he says what's the matter with that rye you been drinking all the early part of the day that is the best thing to keep the presspiration coming out of your sweat pores.
Well, no sooner said than done.
The number of times them old-fashioned bartenders has saved my life summer and winter with good advice is as too numerous to mention as is the stars in the sky and their name is legend as the good book says.
In them days when there was a barroom on every corner and sometimes four barrooms on every four corners I never cared about the weather at all for I knowed no matter what the weather was I could keep my health safe.
If you was to look out the barroom window and see a sudden change in the weather you could make a sudden change and switch to some other kind of drink and keep yourself protected from them sudden changes.
But in these days when a sudden change in the weather comes what protection have you got I would like to know. You are running the risks of them sudden changes all the time day and night, and no chance to change your drink to meet them with for you are lucky if you have one kind of liquor let alone all the different kinds of ingredients you used to ornament your digestion with.
Nowadays when the weather ain't just right I have to stay home in my own room up to the top of the house where I got that little bar rigged up where I wait on myself and staying to home all the time ain't any too good for me.
It don't give me a chance to get any outdoor exercise, staying at home don't and a man needs outdoor exercise if he is going to keep his health.
That is another thing Prohibition has done to me: it has took away all my chance for outdoor exercise.
I reckon them Prohibitionists will be satisfied when they got everybody's health broke down on account of them sudden changes in the weather and nobody getting any outdoor exercise any more.
YES, sir; yes, sir!” said the Old Soak, with a happy smile on his face. “I've done found out the way to beat the game—! Ask me no questions, and I'll tell ye no lies as to how I done it.
“Ye see this here bottle, do ye? Kentucky Bourbon, and nothin' else. Bottled in bond, an' there's plenty more where that comes from.—Ask me no questions, and I'll enrich ye with no misinformations!—Ye see that there little car parked out there by the curbstone, do ye? Well, sir, that there car is my car, and under the back seat of it is twelve quarts of this here stuff!—And it ain't home brewed, neither; it's some of the best liquor you ever throwed your lips over!—How do I do it?—Don't ply me with no questions, and I won't bring you no false witnesses!
“Notice these here new clothes of mine? Well, sir, that there suit's a bargain.—It only cost me two cases of rye.—I got three new suits like that to home, an' I'm figgerin' on buying one of these here low neck an' short sleeve dress suits for to wear to banquets this winter.—They's a whole passel o' folks would like to give me banquets this cornin' season.—How do I do it?—Ask me no questions, and I'll give you no back talk!
“If you was to come out to the house, I'd interduce ye to quite a lot of good liquor.—Can't drink no more, huh?—Ain't ye got a friend ye could bring?—I'd like to have ye meet my son-in-law.
“Yes, sir; yes, sir! Daughter was married two months ago. The youngest one. Her and her husband is makin' their home with us temporary.—I'm tryin' to persuade of 'em to stop to our house permanent.—Yes, sir, my son-in-law, he is one of these here revenooers.—Well, so long!—I gotto see an old friend o' mine that lives up to the Bronx this afternoon.—He ain't had a real drink fer nigh onto three months, he tells me.—I'm headin' a rescue party into them there regions.
“Yes, sir; yes, sir! I figger my daughter married well!—Bring up yer kids in the way they should go like the Good Book says, and Providence will do the rest.—Henry, that's my son-in-law, is figgerin' mebby he can get my son Jim made a revenooer, too.—Ask me no questions, an I'll give away no fambly secrets!”