*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51920 ***

THE OLD SOAK, and HAIL AND FAREWELL

By Don Marquis

Line Drawings By Sterling Patterson

Garden City, N. Y., and Toronto

Doubleday, Page K Company

1921

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author thanks the Publishers of the New York Sun, in which the
following sketches and verses originally appeared, for permission to
reissue them in book form.





OLD SOAK




CHAPTER ONE--Introducing the Old Soak


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OUR friend, the Old Soak, came in from his home in Flatbush to see us
not long ago, in anything but a jovial mood.

“I see that some persons think there is still hope for a liberal
interpretation of the law so that beer and light wines may be sold,”
 said we.

“Hope,” said he, moodily, “is a fine thing, but it don't gurgle none
when you pour it out of a bottle. Hope is all right, and so is Faith...
but what I would like to see is a little Charity.

“As far as Hope is concerned, I'd rather have Despair combined with a
case of Bourbon liquor than all the Hope in the world by itself.

“Hope is what these here fellows has got that is tryin' to make their
own with a tea-kettle and a piece of hose. That's awful stuff, that is.
There's a friend of mine made some of that stuff and he was scared of
it, and he thinks before he drinks any he will try some of it onto a
dumb beast.

“But there ain't no dumb beast anywheres handy, so he feeds some of
it to his wife's parrot. That there parrot was the only parrot I ever
knowed of that wasn't named Polly. It was named Peter, and was supposed
to be a gentleman parrot for the last eight or ten years. But whether
it was or not, after it drank some of that there home-made hootch Peter
went and laid an egg.

“That there home-made stuff ain't anything to trifle with.

“It's like amateur theatricals. Amateur theatricals is all right for an
occupation for them that hasn't got anything to do nor nowhere to go,
but they cause useless agony to an audience. Home-made booze may be all
right to take the grease spots out of the rugs with, but it ain't for
the human stomach to drink. Home-made booze is either a farce with no
serious kick to it, or else a tragedy with an unhappy ending. No, sir,
as soon as what is left has been drank I will kiss good-bye to the
shores of this land of holiness and suffering and go to some country
where the vegetation just naturally works itself up into liquor in a
professional manner, and end my days in contentment and iniquity.

“Unless,” he continued, with a faint gleam of hope, “the smuggling
business develops into what it ought to. And it may. There's some
friends of mine already picked out a likely spot on the shores of Long
Island and dug a hole in the sand that kegs might wash into if they was
throwed from passing vessels. They've hoisted friendly signals, but so
far nothing has been throwed overboard.”

He had a little of the right sort on his hip, and after refreshing
himself, he announced:

“I'm writing a diary. A diary of the past. A kind of gol-dinged
autobiography of what me and Old King Booze done before he went into the
grave and took one of my feet with him.

“In just a little while now there won't be any one in this here
broad land of ours, speaking of it geographically, that knows what an
old-fashioned barroom was like. They'll meet up with the word, future
generations of posterity will, and wonder and wonder and wonder just
what a saloon could have resembled, and they will cudgel their brains in
vain, as the poet says.

“Often in my own perusal of reading matter I run onto institutions that
I would like to know more of. But no one ever set down and described 'em
because everyone knowed all about them in the time when the writing was
done. Often I thought I would 'a' liked to knowed all about them Hanging
Gardens of Babylon, for instance, and who was hanged in 'em and what
for; but nobody ever described 'em, as fur as I know.”

“Have you got any of it written?” we asked him. “Here's the start of
it,” said he.

We present it just as the Old Soak penned it.




CHAPTER TWO--Beginning the Old Soak's History of the Rum Demon


I WILL hereinunder set down nothing but what is the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Well, in the old days,
before everybody got so gosh-amighty good, barrooms was so frequent that
nobody thought of setting down their scenery and habits.

Usually you went into it by a pair of swinging doors that met in the
middle and didn't go full length up, so you could see over the top of
the door, and if any one was to come into one door you didn't want
to have talk with or anything you could see him and have a chance to
gravitate out the door at the other end of the barroom while he was
getting in. But you couldn't see into the windows of them as a habitual
custom, because who could tell whether a customer's family was going
to pass by and glance in. Well, in your heart you knew you was doing
nothing to be ashamed of, but all families even in the good old days
contained some prohibition relations. The Good Book says that flies in
the ointment send forth a smell to heaven. Well, you felt more private
like with the windows fixed thataway. They was painted, soaped, and some
stained glassed.

It had its good sides and it had its bad sides, but I will say I have
been completely out of touch, just as much as if I was a native of some
hot country, with all kinds of morality and religions of all sorts, ever
since the barrooms was shut up. From childhood's earliest hours religion
has been one of my favourite studies, and I never let a week pass
without I get down on my knees some time or another and pray about
something any more than I would let a week pass without I washed all
over. It was early recollections of a good woman that kept me religious,
and I hope I do not have to say anything further to this gang. Well,
in spite of my religion I never went to church none. Because it ain't
reasonable to suppose that a man could keep awake. He thinks, “What if
I should nod,” and he does. So that always throwed me back onto the
barrooms for my religion.

Well, then, the first thing you know when you are up by the free lunch
counter eating some of that delicatessen in comes a girl and says to
contribute to the cause. Well, “What cause are you?” you ask her. Well,
she says, Salvation Army or the Volunteers, or what not, and so forth,
as the case may be, or maybe she was boosting for some of these new
religions that gets out a paper and these girls go around and sell it
for ten cents, which they always set a date for the world coming to an
end. Well, then, you got a line on her religion, and you was ashamed
not to give her a quarter, for you had spent a dollar for drinks already
that morning. And then all through the day there was other religions
come in, one after another, or maybe the same religion over and over
again.

Well, then, you kept in touch with religions and it made a better man
out of you, and along about evening time when you figured on going home
you felt like it wouldn't be right to tell any pervarications to your
wife about how you come to be so late, so you just said over the phone:
“I am starting right away. I stopped into Ed's place to play a game of
pool after work and met a fellow I used to know. I couldn't get away
from him and I was too thoughtful of you to insist for him to come home
to dinner so he insisted I ought to have a drink with him for old
time's sake.” And if it hadn't been for being in contact with different
religions all day you would of lied outright to your wife and felt mean
as a dog about it when she found you out.

Well, then, it needs no further proof that the abolishment of the saloon
has taken away the common people's religions from them, but it is my
message to tell just what the barrooms was like and not to criticize the
laws of the land, even when they are dam-foolish as so many of them are.
So I will confine myself to describing the barroom and the rum demon.

Well, I never saw much rum drunk in the places where I hung out.
Sometimes some baccardy into a cocktail, but for my part cocktails
always struck me as wicked. The good book says that the Lord started the
people right but that men had made many adventures. Well, then, I took
mine straight for the most part, except when I needed some special kind
of a pick-up in the morning.

And the good book says not to tarry long over the wine cup, and I never
done that, neither, except a little Rhine wine in the summer time, but
mostly took mine straight.

Well, then, to come down to describing these phantom places over which
the raven says nevermore but the posterity of the future may wish to
have its own say so about. Well, there was a long counter always kept
wiped off, not like these here sticky soda-water counters which the boys
and girls back of them always look sticky, too, and their sleeves look
sticky and the glasses is sticky, but in a decent barroom the counter
was kept swiped off clean and selfrespectable.

And there was a brass rail with cuspidors near to it, if you wanted to
cuspidate it was handy right there, and there's no place to hawk and
cuspidate in these here soda-water dives. Not that I ever been in them
much. All that stuff rots the lining of your stomach. As far as I am
concerned, being the posterity of a lot of Scotch ancestors, I never
liked soft stuff in my insides.

I never drunk nothing but whiskey for comfort and pleasure, and I never
took no medicine in my life except calomel, and I always held to the
Presbyterian religion as my favourite religion because those three
things has got some kick when took inside of you.

Well, then, to get down to telling just what these places was like, it
would surprise this generation of posterity how genteel some of them
was. Which I will come down to in my next chapter. Well, I will close
this chapter.




CHAPTER THREE--Liquor and Hennery Simms


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I NEVER could see liquor drinking as a bad habit,” said the Old Soak,
“though I admit fair and free it will lead to bad habits if it ain't
watched.

“In these here remarks of mine, I aim to tell the truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help me Jehorsophat, as the good book says.

“One feller I knowed whose liquor drinking led to bad habits was my old
friend Hennery Simms.

“Every time Hennery got anyways jingled he used to fall downstairs, and
he fell down so often that it got to be a habit and you couldn't call it
nothing else. He thought he had to.

“One time late at night I was going over to Brooklyn on the subway, and
I seen one of these here escalators with Hennery onto it moving upwards,
only Hennery wasn't riding on his feet, he was riding on the spine of
his back.

“And when he got to the top of the thing and it skated him out onto the
level, what does Hennery do but pitch himself onto it again, head first,
and again he was carried up.

“After I seen him do that three or four times I rode up to where Hennery
was floundering at and I ast him what was he doing.

“'I'm falling downstairs,' says Hennery.

“'What you doing that fur?' I says.

“'I'm drunk, ain't I?' says Hennery. 'You old fool, you knows I always
falls downstairs when I'm drunk.'

“'How many times you goin' to fall down these here stairs?' I ast him.

“'I ain't fell down these here stairs once yet,' says Hennery, 'though
I must of tried to a dozen times. I been tryin' to fall down these here
stairs ever since dusk set in, but they's something wrong about 'em.

“'If I didn't know I was drunk, I would swear these here stairs was
movin'.'

'“They be movin',' I tells him.

“'You go about your business,' he says, 'and don't mock a man that's
doing the best he can. In course they ain't movin'.

“'They only looks like they was movin' to me because I'm drunk. You
can't fool me.'

“And I left him still tryin' to fall down them stairs, and still bein'
carried up again. Which, as I remarked at first, only goes to show that
drink will lead to habits if it ain't watched, even when it ain't a
habit itself.”

“Do you have any more of your History of the Rum Demon written?” we
asked him.

“Uh-huh,” said he, and left us the second installment.




CHAPTER FOUR--The Old Soak's History--The Barroom as an Educative
Influence


WELL, as I said in my first installment, some 'of them barrooms was
such genteel places they would surprise you if you had got the idea that
they was all gems of iniquity and wickedness with the bartenders mostly
in clean collars and their hair slicked, not like so many of these
soda-water places, where the hair is stringy.

Well, this is for future generations of posterity that will have never
saw a saloon, and the whole truth is to be set down, so help me God, and
I will say that it took a good deal of sweeping sometimes to keep the
floor clean and often the free lunch was approached with one fork for
several people, especially the beans. Well, it has been three or four
years even before that Eighteenth Commandment passed since free lunch
was what it once was. And some barrooms was under par. But I am speaking
of the average good class barroom, where you would take your own
children or grandchildren, as the case may be.

They was some very kind-hearted places among them where if a man had
spent all his money already for his own good they would refuse to let
him have anything more to drink until maybe someone set them up for him.

But to get down to brass tacks and describe what they looked like more
thoroughly I will say they was always attractive to me with those
long expensive mirrors and brass fixtures like a scene of elegance and
grandeur out of the Old Testament where it tells of Solomon in all his
glory. And if a gent would forget to be genteel after he took too much
and his money was all spent and imbue himself with loud talk or rough
language and maybe want to hit somebody and there was none of his
friends there to take charge of him often I have seen such throwed out
on their ear, for the better class places always aimed to be decent
and orderly and never to have an indecent reputation for loudness and
roughhouseness.

Well, I will say I have not kept up with politics like I used to since
the barrooms was vanished. My eyes ain't what they used to be and
the newspapers are different from each other so who can tell what to
believe, but in the old days you could keep in touch with politics in
the barrooms. It made a better citizen out of you for every man ought
to vote for what his consciousness tells him is right and to abide in
politics by his consciousness.

Well, closing the barroom has shut off my chance to be imbued with
political dope and who to bet on in the next election and I am not so
good a citizen as before the saloons was closed. I would not know who to
bet on in any election but I used to get straight tips and in that way
took an interest in politics which a man is scarcely to be called an
American citizen unless he does.

Well I see everywhere where all the doctors and science sharks says to
keep in touch with outdoor sports if you want to keep young. I used to
know all about all those outdoor sports and who the Giants had bought
and what they paid for him and who was the best pitcher and what the
dope was on tomorrow's entries at Havana, but all that is taken away
from me now the saloons is closed and I got no chance to get into touch
with outdoor sports and I feel it in my health. Some of these days the
Prohibition aliments will wake up and see they have ruined the country
but then it will be too late. Taking the sports away from a nation is
not going to do it any good when the next war comes along if one does.

Well, I promised I would describe more what they looked like. I will
tackle that in the next chapter, so I will bring this installment to a
close.




CHAPTER FIVE--Look Out For Crime Waves!


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THEY'RE going to take our tobacco next, are they?” said the Old Soak.
“Well, me, I won't struggle none! I ain't fit to struggle. I'm licked;
my heart's broke. They can come and take my blood if they want it, and
all I'll do is ask 'em whether they'll have it a drop at a time, or the
whole concerns in a bucket.

“All I say is: _Watch out for Crime Waves!_ I don't threaten nobody, I
just predict. If you ever waked up about 1 o'clock in the morning,
two or three miles from a store, and that store likely closed, and no
neighbour near by, and the snow drifting the roads shut, and wanted a
smoke, and there wasn't a single crumb of tobacco nowheres in the house,
you know what I mean. You go and look for old cigar and cigarette butts
to crumble into your pipe, and there ain't none. You go through all your
clothes for little mites of tobacco that have maybe jolted into your
pockets, and there ain't none. Your summer clothes is packed away into
the bottom of a trunk somewheres, and you wake your wife to find the key
to the trunk, and you get the clothes and there ain't no tobacco in them
pockets, either.

“And then you and your wife has words. And you sit and suffer and cuss
and chew the stem of your empty pipe. By 3 in the morning there ain't
no customary crime known you wouldn't commit. By 4 o'clock you begin to
think of new crimes, and how you'd like to commit them and then make up
comic songs about 'em and go and sing them songs at the funerals of them
you've slew.

“Hark to me: If tobacco goes next, there'll be a crime wave! Take away a
man's booze, and he dies, or embraces dope or religion, or goes abroad,
or makes it at home, or drinks varnish, or gets philosophical or
something. But tobacco! No, sir! There ain't any substitute. Why, the
only way they're getting away with this booze thing now is because
millions and millions of shattered nerves is solacing and soothing
theirselves with tobacco.

“I'm mild, myself. I won't explode. I'm getting my booze. I know where
there's plenty of it. My heart's broke to see the saloons closed, and
I'm licked by the overwhelming righteous... but I won't suffer any
personal for a long time yet. But there's them that will. And on top of
everything else, tobacco is to go! All right, take it--but I
say solemn and warningly: _Look Out For Crime Waves!_

“The godly and the righteous can push us wicked persons just so far,
but worms will turn. Look at the Garden of Eden! The mammal of iniquity
ain't never yet been completely abolished. Look at the history of the
world--every once in a while it has always looked as if the pious and
the uplifter was going to bring in the millennium, with bells on
it--but something has always happened just in time and the mammal of
unrighteousness has come into his own again. I ain't threatening; I just
predict---_Look Out For Crime Waves!_

“As for me, I may never see Satan come back home. I'm old. I ain't long
for this weary land of purity and this vale of tears and virtue. I'll
soon be in a place where the godly cease from troubling and the wicked
are at rest. But I got children and grandchildren that'll fight against
the millennium to the last gasp, if I know the breed, and I'm going to
pass on full of hope and trust and calm belief.

“Here,” concluded the Old Soak, unscrewing the top of his pocket flask,
“here is to the mammal of unrighteousness!”

He deposited on our desk the next installment of his History.




CHAPTER SIX--Continuing the Old Soak's History--The Barroom and the Arts

WELL, I promised to describe what the saloon that has been banished was
like so that future generations of posterity will know what it was like
they never having seen one. And maybe being curious, which I would give
a good deal to know how they got all their animals into the ark only
nobody that was on the spot thought to write it down and figure the room
for the stalls and cages and when it comes to that how did they train
animals to talk in those days like Balaam and his ass, and Moses
knocking the water out of the rocks always interested me.

Which I will tell the truth, so help me. It used to be this way: some
had tables and some did not. But I never was much of a one for tables,
for if you set down your legs don't tell you anything about how you
are standing it till you get up and find you have went further than you
intended, but if you stand up your legs gives you a warning from time to
time you better not have but one more.

Well, I will tell the truth. And one thing is the treating habit was a
great evil. They would come too fast, and you would take a light drink
like Rhine wine whilst they was coming too fast and that way use up
considerable room that you could of had more advantage from if you had
saved it for something important.

Well, the good book says to beware of wine and evil communications
corrupts a good many. Well, what I always wanted was that warm feeling
that started about the equator and spread gentle all over you till
you loved your neighbour as the good book says and wine never had the
efficiency for me.

Well, I will say even if the treating habit was a great evil it is an
ill wind that blows nobody any good. Well, I promised to come down to
brass tacks and describe what the old-time barroom looked like. Some of
the old timers had sawdust on the floor, which I never cared much for
that as it never looked genteel to me and almost anything might be mixed
into it.

I will tell the whole truth, so help me. And another kick I got is about
business advantages. Which you used to be lined up by the bar five or
six of you and suppose you was in the real estate business or something
a fellow would say he had an idea that such and such a section would be
going to have a boom and that started you figuring on it. Well, I missed
a lot of business opportunities like that since the barroom has been
vanished. What can a country expect if it destroys all chances a man has
got to get ahead in business? The next time they ask us for business
as usual to win a war with this country will find out something about
closing up all chances a man has to get tips on their business chances.

Well, the good book says to laugh and grow fat and since the barroom
has been taken away, what chance you got to hear any new stories I would
like to know. Well, so help me, I said I would tell the truth, and the
truth is some of them stories was not fit to offer up along with
your prayers, but at the same time you got acquainted with some right
up-to-date fellows. Well, what I want to know is how could you blame a
country for turning into Bolshevisitors if all chance for sociability is
shut off by the government from the plain people?

Well, the better class of them had pictures on the walls, and since they
been taken away what chance has a busy man like me got to go to a museum
and see all them works of art hand painted by artists and looking as
slick and shiny as one of these here circus lithographs. Well, a country
wants to look out what it is doing when it shuts off from the plain
people all the chance to educate itself in the high arts and hand
painting. Some of the frames by themselves must of been worth a good
deal of money.

The Good Book says you shalt not live by bread alone and if you ain't
got a chance to educate your self in the high arts or nothing after a
while this country will get to the place where all the foreign countries
will laugh at us for we won't know good hand painting when we see
it. Well, they was a story to all them hand paintings, and often when
business was slack I used to talk with Ed the bartender about them
paintings and what did he suppose they was about.

What chance have I got to go and buy a box to set in every night at the
Metropolitan Opera House I would like to know and hear singing. Well,
the good book says not to have anything to do with a man that ain't got
any music in his soul and the right kind of a crowd in the right kind of
a barroom could all get to singing together and furnish me with music.

A government that takes away all its music like that from the plain
people had better watch out. Some of these days there will be another
big war and what will they do without music. I always been fond of music
and there ain't anywhere I can go that it sounds the same sort of warmed
up and friendly and careless. Let alone taking away my chance to meet up
with different religions taking away my music has been a big blow to me.

Well, I will tell the truth so help me, it was a nice place to drop into
on a rainy day; you don't want to be setting down at home on a rainy
day, reading your Bible all the time. But since they been closed I had
to do a lot of reading to get through the day somehow and the wife
is too busy to talk to me and the rest of the family is at work or
somewheres.

Well, another evil is I been doing too much reading and that will rot
out your brains unless of course it is the good book and you get kind
of mixed up with all them revelations and things. And you get tired
figuring out almanacs and the book with 1,000 drummer's jokes in it
don't sound so good in print as when a fellow tells them to you and I
never was much of a one for novels. What I like is books about something
you could maybe know about yourself and maybe some of them old-time
wonders of the world with explanations of how they was made. But nobody
that was on the spot took the trouble to explain a lot of them things
which is why I am setting down what the barroom was like so help me.

Well, in the next chapter I will describe it some more or future
generations will have no notion of them without the Constitution of the
United States changes its mind and comes to its census again.




CHAPTER SEVEN--An Argument With the Old Woman


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THE Old Woman and me had quite an argument last Sunday,” said the Old
Soak. “It ended up with her turning a saucepan full of hot peas onto my
bald spot, which ain't no way to treat garden truck, with the cost of
things what they be.

“But I won one of these here moral victories, even if she did get the
best of me and chase me out of the house.

“It all come about over some pie we had for dinner on Sunday. It looked
like mince pie to me when she set it on the table, and I says to her why
don't she make some rhubarb pie or apple pie or something, for this is
a hell of a time of year to be having mince pie. And mince pie ain't no
good anyhow unless you put a shot of brandy or hard cider into it. She
knows I orter be careful what I put into my stomach, which is all to the
bad since I can't get the right kind of drink any more, and I told her
so.

“'Well, then,' says she, 'this ain't mince pie. This is raisin pie.'

“'Raisin pie!' I says, and I was shocked and scandalized. 'Raisin pie!
Good lord, woman, are you crazy? You don't mean to say you've went and
took hundreds and hundreds of good raisins and went and wasted them
thataway by puttin' 'em in a _pie!_ It's the most extravagant thing I
ever hearn tell on! Ain't you got sense enough to know that in these
days raisins ain't something you eat?'

'“Well, what are they, then?' she says.

'“Raisins, I told her, 'is something you make hootch out of, and you
know I'm reduced to makin' my own stuff these days. And yet here you be,
puttin' at least a quart of good raisins into a gosh-darned pie!'

“Well, one word led to another, and, as I said, she hit me with the
peas. But I got away with that pie. I won the moral victory. I got that
pie fermentin' now, in the bottom of a cask full of grape and berry
juice and other truck I picked up here and there. No, sir, there ain't
goin' to be no raisins wasted around my house by eatin' of 'em in this
here time of need!”

The Old Soak was silent a moment, and then he said: “This here
installment of my diary of booze takes up that very point of quarrellin'
with the Old Woman.”




CHAPTER EIGHT--The Old Soak's History--More Evils of Prohibition


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.




CHAPTER NINE--Preparing for Christmas


[Illustration: 0050]

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.”




CHAPTER TEN--Continuing the History--the Old Soak Fears for the Growing
Children


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.




CHAPTER ELEVEN--Jabe Potter's Optimism


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.”




CHAPTER TWELVE--More of the History--As It Used to Be of a Morning


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.




CHAPTER THIRTEEN--Peace and Contentment


[Illustration: 0066]

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.”




CHAPTER FOURTEEN--Continuing the History of the Rum Demon--Unfermented
Grape Juice


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.




CHAPTER FIFTEEN--Political Talk


[Illustration: 0073]

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.”




CHAPTER SIXTEEN--The History Continued--Prohibition and Winter Weather


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.




CHAPTER SEVENTEEN--The Old Soak Finds a Way


[Illustration: 0079]

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!”




CHAPTER EIGHTEEN--The History Continued--the Barroom's Good Influence


[Illustration: 0082]

ANOTHER thing I miss in regard to all them vanished barrooms being
closed up is kind feeling about respect to the old especially to parents
and them that has departed.

Where is the younger generations of posterity going to learn how to be
kind hearted about home and mother now that the barrooms is all closed
up I would like to know?

It used to be that a lot of fellows would get all tanked up of an
afternoon or evening and in the right sort of a place they would get to
singing songs.

All them songs about home and mother and to treat her right now that
her hair had turned gray. I never was much of a one to sing myself
especially unless I had a few drinks into me.

But whether I helped sing them or not all them songs would make a better
man of me. You stand up to a bar or sit down at a table and listen to
them songs for two or three hours and if you are any kind of a man at
all you will wish you had always done the right thing and now that all
them songs about home and mother has been took away from me I ain't the
man I used to be at all.

I feel myself going down hill because my softer emotions and feelings
ain't never stirred up by nothing any more.

Well, this Eighteenth Commandment is going to make a hard-hearted
country out of this here country. Nobody is never going to think as much
of home and mother as they used to. And I guess them prohibitionists
won't feel so smart when they see all them old ladies with gray hair
flung out onto the streets in the rainy weather just because nobody
would pay the mortgage off. Lots of times when I was a young feller
after hearing them songs for awhile I would say to myself I will set
right down and write a letter to my mother, I ain't wrote her for five
or six months. And when I got older after she passed on I used to say
to myself some of these days I will have to make a visit to the old home
place and take a look around there.

But all them softer feelings has been took away from me now and what I
would like to know is how is the younger generation going to grow up.
Hard hearted, that is how.

Some of these here fine days I may be cast out into the street myself
with the rain drops dripping down offen my hat brim into my eyebrows
just because nobody won't pay a mortgage and it has got to be a
hard-hearted country.

I hope none of them there smart alick Prohis will be flung out onto
the street thataway. Because they got no friends would pay off their
mortgages and they would just naturally be destituted to death. I ain't
hard hearted like they be and I hope that don't happen to none of them.
But if it ever did they would find out a few things.

In my next chapter I will get down to brass tacks and give a true
description of them barrooms that has perished off the face of the
earth.




CHAPTER NINETEEN--A House Divided


THE Old Soak has been looking rather well for some time; he seems
prosperous and happy, for the most part, and contented with the quantity
and quality of the hootch he has been gettin'. But yesterday he dropped
in to see us with just the slightest shade of gloom on his features. We
asked him about it.

“It's that there son of mine,” he says. “He's too young to know enough
to let well enough alone, like the Good Book says to do. They's a lot of
these young fellers you can't learn nothing to.

“This yere son-in-lawr of mine I been tellin' you about, that is a
revenooer, got my son made into a revenooer, too. And it ain't
long before my son gits jest as good an automobile as the one
my son-in-lawr's been drivin'. And joy out to our house has been
unconcerned, with everyone exceptin' the Ol' Woman, and she's been
prayin' agin the rest of the fambly.

“But this yere son o' mine, he gets too much hootch under his belt one
day, and he gets into this yere brand-new automobile of his'n and he
starts onto one of these yere raids. Which would of been all right,
bein' as it's what a revenooer is for, if he had only used a leetle
bit o' jedgment. But the young has got a lot to learn, and babes and
striplings, the Good Book says, jest naturally has their dam fool
streaks.

“This yere raid my son goes onto turns out all wrong. For whilst he is
pinchin' who does he pinch in the gang of wicked sinners but that there
son-in-lawr of mine, the revenooer as got him his job, said son-in-lawr
bein' off duty and pickled hisself at the time.

“So this here son-in-lawr of mine, he mighty nigh loses of his job as a
revenooer, bein' took up in one of the raids he was legally supposed
to be startin' himself, and they was quite a fuss about it, so I
understand, and the thing was finally settled with a compromise--it
wasn't my son-in-lawr lost his job, but they compromised it and fired my
son out'n his job.

“But now my son, he has went and got sore at my son-in-lawr, and he says
unless he gits his job back as a revernooer he will tell all he knows.

“So my house is a house that is sided against itself, like the Good Book
says, and every member of the fambly has took sides one way or the other
'twixt my son and my son-in-lawr, and the Ol' Woman is agin both on 'em,
and agin me, too--a-prayin' an' a-prayin' an' a-prayin'.

“'You went and prayed for years an' years so as to get prohibish'n,'
I tells her; 'an' now you got it--you got more on it than any woman I
knows, for it's come right into your own home. An' now you got it you
ain't satisfied with it--there you be onto your marrow bones prayin'
agin the revenooers.'

“I s'pose I was too hifalutin' an' ambitious, wantin' to keep two
members of my fambly into the revenooer job. And as long as my
son-in-lawr stays into office and continues to make his home with me I
won't have no kick cornin', but will take my hootch in thankfulness
and humility, like the Good Book says to do, eatin', drinkin' an' bein'
merry. This yere leetle cloud of gloom what you notice is due to the
Ol' Woman's prayers. I cain't help but feel she is goin' direct agin
Scripter and her husband's best intrusts.”




CHAPTER TWENTY--Continuing the History of the Rum Demon--the Barroom and
Manners


[Illustration: 0088]

ANOTHER thing about those barrooms that has been vanished forever is
the fact that most of them was right polite sort of places if a fellow
edged up to the bar and knocked over your glass of whiskey or something
like that he would say, O excuse me stranger and you would say sure, but
look where in hell you are going to after this.

Sure he would say no offence meant. No offence taken you would say to
him. Have one with me he would say.

No sooner said than done.

But nowadays all you see and hear is bad manners and impoliteness with
people hustling and bumping into each other on the subways and stepping
on each other and women and children amongst them and nobody ever
begging anybody's pardon and hard feelings everywhere.

The trouble is everybody is sore and wanting a drink all the time and
there is no place where the younger generation is going to learn good
manners now that the barrooms is gone. What is the young fellows
just growing up to manhood going to do for their manners now that the
barrooms is closed, is what I want to know.

It used to be you would get onto a subway train and there would be two
or three women standing up and you would be setting down and there would
be three or four drinks under your belt and you would be feeling good
and you would say to yourself am I a gentleman or ain't I a gentleman.

You're damned right I am a gentleman, you would say to yourself, here,
lady, you set down, and don't let any of these here bums roust you out
of that seat.

If any of these here bums tries to roust you out of that seat I will put
a tin ear onto them.

That's the kind of a gentleman I am, lady, they would have a hell of a
time, lady, getting your seat away from you with me here.

And she seen you was a gentleman and she smiled at you and you hung onto
a strap and felt good.

But nowadays there ain't no manners, with no place to get a drink or
anything.

You are setting in the subway and a lady comes in and has nowheres to
set, and you say to yourself let some of these other guys get up and
give her a seat.

And you think a while and you say to yourself I'll bet she is a
Prohibitionist anyhow. Let her stand up. She has got to learn you can't
have any manners with the barrooms all closed and everything.

Well, that's another thing closing the barroom has done. It has took
away all the manners this town ever had.

In my next chapter I will get down to brass tacks and tell just what
those barrooms was like for the benefit of future posterity that has
never seen one.




CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE--Sympathy Wanted


YES,” said the Old Soak, “I get plenty of hootch nowadays. My son is
back into the revenoo business, and my son-in-lawr is with it, too. I
gets plenty of whiskey. I've got some into me, and I've got some onto my
hip, and I know where I'm going to get some more when that's gone.”

And he sighed.

“Why so gloomy, then?” we asked. “You should be radiating a Falstaffian
joviality. You should be as merry as the merry, merry villagers in an
opera on the Duke's birthday. But on the contrary, you shake from out
your condor wings unutterable wo, as E. A. Poe has it. Wherefore?”

“I miss,” he said, “the next mornin' sympathy... the next mornin'
ministration. Any one can get drunk under the auspices of Prohibition,
but it takes the right kind of barkeep fur to get you sober agin and
make you like it.

“Where is the next morning barkeep? He ain't. He was wise as a serpent
and gentle as a dove like the Good Book says. He knowed right off what
ailed you, at 11 o'clock on a cloudy morning, and what was good for it.
A little of this, out of the long green bottle, and a little of that,
and some ice tinklin' in it, and the white of an egg mebby, and... oh,
you know! One of them, and there was salve onto the sore spot of your
soul. Two of them and you began to forgive yourself. Three of them, and
you could hear about breakfast; you could look an egg into the eye.

“And he never asked no question about your past, that barkeep didn't.
He didn't need to. He knowed. He seen last night's history in this
morning's footnote. He was kind. 'Feel a little better now, sir?'
he'd ask. 'Two or three of them is enough, sir, if you ask me. Get your
breakfast, now, sir, and you'll be quite O. K. Yes, sir, I learned to
mix them in New Orleans...' You talked to him, and he let you. He was
like a mother's knee to a three-year-old that's bumped his head, the
old-fashioned barkeep was.

“But now, he ain't. Now, when you get up, Gloom stands on one side of
you and Conscience on the other, and Remorse is feeding lines of both of
'em.

“'Well,' says Gloom, 'this is a fine, cheerful morning, this is! This is
about as full of sunshine as the insides of the whale that drank Jonah.'

“'It is,' says Remorse, 'and then some. Conscience and me feels so bad
about it that we're gonna jump off the dock together.'

“'I ain't, neither,' says Conscience. 'I'm gonna save myself for the
worst. The worst is yet to come. And I want to be here when it comes.'

“'I ain't gonna be here when it comes,' says Gloom. 'I'm going over to
the Aquarium and rent myself out for a fish.'

“Just then,” went on the Old Soak, “a strange party sticks his head in
at the door and says, 'Never again!' “'Who be you?' says Gloom. 'I'm
Repentance,' says the buttinski, 'and I calls on you guys to mend your
ways!'

“And Gloom, he looks at the hard liquor left in the bottom of the
bottle, and at the sky, and at the door of the closed-up barroom across
the street, and he says, 'It can't be done without some uplift. I need
soothing words, and an educated hand.'

“'We got what's coming to us,' says Remorse. 'And there's more of it
coming,' says Conscience. 'Better quit!' says Repentance. 'I ain't gonna
quit,' says Gloom, 'without the right kind of a drink to quit on. I
ain't never yet quit without the right kind of a drink to quit on, and
I'm not going to start any innovations on a rotten day like this.'

“Well,” went on the Old Soak, “you sits on the edge of your bed and you
listen to these yere guys talking, and you think how right all of them
is, and you wonder whether it's any use getting up, and you think of all
the barkeeps you used to know, and after a while you suck an orange
and think of one of them long silver fizzes with frost on the glass and
charity and loving-kindness in its heart, like Ed used to shake up,--you
think of it so hard you well-nigh taste it, and then the meerage fades
away and you ain't nothin' but a camel in the desert again with a
humpbacked taste in your mouth.

“Yes, sir,” said the Old Soak, “I can get all the booze I want, but I
can't get sympathy. What a man needs in the morning is a kind heart for
to comfort him, and a strong arm to lean on. Anybody can give me good
advice, but it don't soothe me any; what I want is a quick friend in a
white apron, wise as a bishop and gentle as a nurse.

“What I want is the Al's and Ed's I used to know. But they've went.
Forever. I won't meet 'em in Hell, because they're too kind hearted
to go there, and I won't meet 'em in Heaven, because I won't go there
myself.

“I reckon,” concluded the Old Soak, “I'll have to go to England.”




CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO--The History of the Rum Demon Concluded--Prohibition
Is Making a Free Thinker of the Old Soak


ANOTHER thing that going without barrooms is doing for this country is
it is destroying Home Life.

It is pretty hard to get along with your wife after you have been
married to her for twenty or thirty years and kind of settle down and
realize you are going to be married to her as long as she lives for
better or for worse unless something happens which it seldom does.

Not that you don't kind of like her and you know she kind of likes you
but the thing is that her and you is apt to treat each other mean now
and then because you get to thinking what a good time you could have if
you didn't have to turn in so much of your money to making a home run
smooth and you know even if you do row with each other you will make up
again and you get to kind of looking forward to the rows because anyhow
that is a change.

But sometimes you carry them rows too far and then you don't know how
to get your Home Life running right again because she is always too
stubborn to give in and you won't be the first one to give in because
you know she is wrong.

But when there was liquor to be had in plenty it was easier to make up
after one of them rows and Home Life went along smoother.

You would get up in the morning and she would say to you, would you have
a boiled egg for breakfast or a fried, and you would say hades what an
idea. Can't you never think of anything but eggs for breakfast. And
she would say yesterday I didn't have eggs and you was sore because you
wanted eggs. You would say just because I wanted eggs yesterday is that
any sign I want them every day of my life till death do us part. I was
only asking what you wanted she would say.

I will go where I can get what I want, you would say. I will eat my
breakfast at a restaurant this morning and maybe I can keep them from
shoving eggs in front of me when I don't ask for eggs. The trouble with
your stomach is not what you put into it in the morning, she would say,
but what you put into it the night before. The trouble with my stomach,
you would say, is that I am worried to death and worked to death all the
time trying to keep this house running and it gives me the dis-pepsy. It
is the liquor gives you dispepsy she would say.

If it wasn't for a little stimulant in my stomach, like the Good Book
says, you tell her, my dispepsy wouldn't let me digest anything at
all and I would starve to death and the mortgage on the house would be
foreclosed and you would go to the old woman's home. Whose money pays
the interest on that mortgage she would say. Whose? you would say. Mine,
she would say. You wouldn't have any money you tell her, if you paid me
back what your relations has borrowed of me.

Well, one word leads to another, and you go off without any breakfast,
for you see her taking the Bible down to set and read it, and when she
sets and reads the Bible you know she is reading it against you and it
gets you madder and madder.

And in the old days when there was barrooms you would go into one
still feeling mad and say Ed, mix me one of the old-fashioned whiskey
cocktails and don't put too much orange and that kind of damned garbage
into it, I want the kick.

No sooner said than done.

And after a couple of them you would say, well after all, the Old Woman
means well, I wonder if I didn't treat her a little mean this morning I
orter call her up on the telephone and give her a jolly.

And then you would think of her relations that you hate and get mad at
her again on account of always sticking up for them, and say, Ed, that
don't set so well, let's try a whiskey sour.

And you would meet a friend and have another with him, and pretty soon
eat some breakfast and think how, after all, it was eggs you was eating
for breakfast and they wasn't cooked no ways as good as the old woman
would of poached them for you on toast if you hadn't been so darned mean
to her.

And your friend would say his old woman blowed him up for coming home
pickled.

And you would have another drink and say that was one thing your old
woman never done to you. My old woman has got some sense, you would say
to him, she knows how a man feels about taking a drink, and she never
blows me up.

And you would set and brag about your old woman and you had never had a
cross word between you in thirty years. And then he would begin to brag
about his old woman, too.

And pretty soon you would say to yourself you better go to the phone and
call her up. She has her mean streaks all right, but who knows, she may
have been right this morning after all, and you take another drink and
get her on the telephone, and give her a chance to say how sorry she was
about the way she treated you that morning and maybe you go and pay an
installment on a new carpet sweeper for her.

Well, it was that way in the old days. Liquor kept your Home Life
running along o. k. You would get mad with your wife and then you would
get sorry for her and give her an excuse to make up with you again.

But now, with no chance to get a drink when I am away from home if I
treat the Old Woman mean in the morning I don't give her a chance to get
on my good side again. And I can see sometimes that it is breaking her
heart.

That's what prohibition is doing to this country. It is breaking the
women's hearts and it is breaking up the Home Life on every hand.

What is going to become of a country where all the Home Life is broke
up?

And what is going to become of the children if there ain't any Home Life
running along smooth any more?

These Prohibitionists that is so darned smart never thought of that I
guess when they put that Eighteenth Commandment across onto us.

Whenever I think of all them women's hearts that is breaking and all
that Home Life that is going plumb to the dogs all on account of the
barrooms being closed up it well-nigh makes a free thinker out of me.

I don't claim to be a church man, but I never was a free thinker before,
neither. But all the sorrow that is going on in the world on account of
them barrooms being closed is making a free thinker of me.






HAIL AND FAREWELL





I--A LAST DRINK


To George McDaniel


[Ill 0103]


     Hail! Barleycorn... they said you
              weren't Nice!
     Salve! You bum, and Vale! Hail! Farewell!
     Your feet, the Prohis say, go down to Hell;
     You led men into Poker, Fights and Dice,
     You filled the world with Murder, Lust and Lice,
     You made a Bar Fly of the Howling Swell,
     You bought the blood that deep-dyed bandits sell--
     You might lead one in time, I fear, to Vice!


     Old blear-eyed mutt, beloved and accurst!
     Before you go, a song for old sake's sake;
     A song memorial to the days and nights
     When I companioned with the Dipsas Snake
     And bared my throat unto his febrous bites,
     Quenching a thirst to gain a greater thirst.





II--IN THE OLD DAYS


To Paul Thompson


     Liquor there is, but, oh! the Bar is gone!
     The long Brass Rail above the Sawdust Floor,
     The gay Hot Dog, the gleaming Cuspidore,
     The bright, brave Nose that brave, bright lights
              shone on,
     The jocund Barkeep, Ed or A1 or John,
     The ribald jest I loved, the answering roar
     That jangled the glasses, shook the swinging door---
     Liquor there is, but these delights are done!
     In the old days when bubbles winked at me,
     In the glad days when I was steeped in Rum,
     I played the Prospero to fantasy,
     I drank, and bade my Ariel fancies come.”
      But I have lost my ancient wizardry
     And mine old self, my lyric self, is dumb.





III--A DIPSEY CHANTEY


To Ned Leamy


[Ill 0106]


     Ho! Heave the anchor! Heave! Fetch her up!
     Twist! with the corkscrews! Steward, lend a hand!
     Let her prance out to sea like a frolic-footed pup,
     For the ship is full of liquor, and to hell with the land!
     Ghosts from the ocean abysses, clambering, clamour-
             ing, come;
     Climb to our decks and roar: “Broach us a puncheon
             of rum!
     We are scaly with salt and sand; we've had nothing
     but water to swallow--
     Stave in a hogshead of rum! Let us roll in the
     scuppers and wallow!”

     Heh! Splice the main-brace! Ho! She smells the
           gale!
     The shipper walks the bridge with a bottle to his eye;
     She rollicks with her boilers full of good Bass Ale--
     By the timber peg of Silver, the sea shall not go dry!
     We have raxed 'em out of the deep, they follow
           through shine and fog,
     Phantoms of ancient mariners, lured by the reek
     of our grog;
     Noah and Hawkins and Kidd, up from the green
          abysses,
     And there, in a wine-stained galley, the ghost of
          great Ulysses!
     Eric the Red in a whale-boat, and with him, cheek
          by jowl,
     Silver begging a drain, God bless his wicked soul!
     Ho! How she snorts! Hey! Hear her snore!
     The wind slaps her nostrils, she hiccoughs for her
          breath!
     Steward, a corkscrew! You poor fish ashore,
     By the bones of Reuben Ranzo, you can choke to
          death!
     With eyes of the darting witch-fire, like mist the
          poor ghosts come,
     And an anguished wind from the mist bellows and
          whines for Rum--
     They have been thirsty so long! Let us be good
          fellows still,
     And open a hundred casks and let 'em wallow and
          swill!
     Quick! With a corkscrew! Oh, damn the wheel!
     The captain's in his hunk, with a bottle to his eye!
     The engineer is stoking with Scotch and lemon 'peel!
     By Davy Jones's locker, the sea shall not go dry!




IV--A CERTAIN CLUB


To Winfield Moody

     Ah, dead and done! Forever dead and done
     The mellow dusks, the friendly dusks and dim,
     When Charley shook the cocktails up, or Tim--?
     Gone are ten thousand gleaming moments, gone
     Like fireflies twinkling toward oblivion!
     Ah, how the bubbles used to leap and swim,
     Breaking in laughter round the goblet's brim,
     When Walter pulled a cork for us, or John!
     I have seen ghosts of men I never knew,--
     Great, gracious souls, the golden hearts of earth--
     Look from the shadows in those rooms we love,
     Living a wistful instant in our mirth;
     I have seen Jefferson smile down at Drew,
     And Booth pause, musing, on the stair above.




V--A TEMPERANCE TRACT


To Bob Dean


     Cocktails are the little brooms
     That whiskey way your will-power!
     A dark disease is Bright's disease,
     And will not yield to pill-power.
     Some may upon red rums descant
     Who never did decant rums,
     But I have eaten bitter bread
     Where bitters breed their tantrums.
     The fool will give his life to booze,
     The wiser man taboos that,
     And I'm a sad Budweiser man
     Than when I used to ooze that.
     I owned a bank, and for a fad
     I cultivated two lips;
     If I had owned the mint itself
     'Twould all have gone for juleps.
     Mumm's extra dry makes some men grow
     As dry as any mummy,
     But when I'm tight I loosen up--
     A punch, and I am chummy.
     Except when I swore off in Lent
     With borrowers I mingled;
     They'd make my pockets cease to clink
     Whenever I was jingled.
     But though I drank with scarce a check
     My drafts saved people trouble,
     For I would often pay dubs twice
     Because I saw 'em double.
     O, cognac is a fearful drink
     To brandy man with shame, O!
     He will, that drinks diluted gin,
     Die looted of good name, O!
     I wined till I began to ail,
     And then I whined with aleing,
     Until to crown the woes I cite
     I found my eyesight failing.
     “Sir, fits will come,” my doctor warned,
     “Surfeits will bloat the mind, sir!”
      I laughed and took my glasses off
     And said, “I'll go it blind, sir!”
      Champagnes and real incider me
     Set my high spirits flagon;
     Still with gay dogs I played the wag,
     Deriding of the wagon.
     My tongue was like a cotton bale,
     All whitish from the gin, sir--
     The doctor said “No tongue can state
     The state your tongue is in, sir!”
      “With so much rye and corn you cope,
     Your crowd are cornucopers--
     How can earth be Utopia
     When peopled by you topers?”
      But still I dodged from fête to fête,
     Still followed by my fate, O!
     Still floating loans and liquids till
     My bank did liquidate, O!
     Buns use up dough; what my fun did,
     Were it refunded one day,
     Would fund the Banks of Newfoundland
     And float the Bay of Fundy.
     Don't hitch your wagon to a star
     Upon the brandy bottle;
     If you your neck to nectar ope
     Your hope 'twill surely throttle.




VI--A VISION IN THE NIGHT


To Grant Rice


     Beyond Arcturus, in a peevish wind,
     I met a rumpled devil beating home.
     “And whence, poor Fiend,” I challenged, “hast
         thou come
     With ragged plumage ravelled out behind
     And splintered teeth and lamps all blear and blind?
     What Fate hath bent a skillet o'er thy dome?”
      He sighed, and in that sigh I read a tome
     Of bleeding sorrows and
          an aching mind.
     “Rough Stuff,” he moaned, “was what I got for
          mine!
     It was fierce Virtue put me on the bum,
     Trampled my slats and wronged my winsome face--
     Once I was loved and called the Angel Wine!
     Kicked hellward now, and hurtling out through space,
     I am known only as the Demon Rum!”




VII--THE LAST CASE OF GIN


To Loren Palmer


     The Tullywub is singing by the Willywinkle's grotto
     His passionate devotion, though he knows he hadn't
          ought to,
     And she wipes away a teardrop with a little furtive
          fin;
     She is fluttered, but she's frightened by his outburst
          of emotion
     In their somewhat formal corner of a rather proper
          ocean--
     And I can understand 'em, for I've got a crate of gin.
     Interpretative theses on the psychochemic state
     Induced in the batrachia by fear or love or hate
     I find are rather easy since I've opened up the crate,
     And I'm gonna be a scientist by morning.
     A Willywinkle's seldom a sprightly thing or elfish,
     But morally she's rigid as the most exclusive shell-
           fish;

     She cans her rash admirer, but she cans him with a
          sigh!
     An analytic novel might be reared upon the basis
     Of a very earnest study of the looks upon their
          faces
     And their brave renunciation when they sobbed and
          said good-by.
     I claim that the transmission of their fortitude and
          pain
     To succeeding generations will improve the moral
          strain
     Of the species here considered and their loss result
          in gain;
     And I wish I had some Angostura Bitters!
     I have a strong impression of the immanence of
           morals
     In this quite extensive cosmos, from castor beans
          to corals,
     And Science and Religion, I will tell the world, are
     one;
     I should prove it, gentle reader, had we leisure time
           before us,
     I should prove it or expire in the act of hurling
           Taurus--
     I wonder where the dickens has that silly corkscrew
           gone?
     I find, as I grow older, the pert Subliminal
     Keeps butting in to chatter with egoistic gall:
     Romance I meditated; this isn't that at all--
     But anyhow I have some limes and siphons!




VIII--CROWNED SINGERS

To Charley Bayne


     Liquor there is . . . but we knew happier
          days!
     When jug by jowl in many a tavern booth
     We sat and glimpsed the world's ulterior truth,
     And followed life through all its secret ways--
     What light flashed up on us in golden rays
     Out of the booze, to blend with fire of youth!
     Crowned singers, we! although, forsooth,
     The Dipsas Snake still rustled in our bays.
     Hail, Rum! Sweet Demon of my wastrel years!
     Farewell, old mellow Angel, ripe with Vice!
     Dreamers and singers, cronies, let us drink
     A stirrup-cup of laughter and of tears!
     Omar and Falstaff, both are on the blink--
     The Bitter People say they are not Nice!




IX--DOWN IN A WINE VAULT


To Harold Gould


     [Ill 0118]


     Down in a wine vault underneath the city
     Two old men were sitting; they were drinking
          booze.
     Torn were their garments, hair and beards were gritty;
     One had an overcoat but hardly any shoes.
     Overhead the street cars through the streets were
          running
     Filled with happy people going home to Christmas;
     In the Adirondacks the hunters all were gunning,
     Big ships were sailing down by the Isthmus.
     In came a Little Tot for to kiss her granny,
     Such a little totty she could scarcely tottle,
     Saying, “Kiss me, Grandpa! Kiss your little Nanny!”
      But the old man beaned her with a whiskey bottle!
     Outside the snowflakes began for to flutter,
     Far at sea the ships were sailing with the seamen,
     Not another word did Angel Nanny utter.
     Her grandsire chuckled and pledged the Whiskey
          Demon!
     Up spake the second man; he was worn and weary,
     Tears washed his face, which otherwise was pasty;
     “She loved her parents, who commuted on the Erie;
     Brother, I'm afraid you struck a trifle hasty!
     “She came to see you, all her pretty duds on,
     Bringing Christmas posies from her mother's
           garden,
     Riding in the tunnel underneath the Hudson;
     Brother, was it Rum caused your heart to harden?”
      Up spake the first man, “Here I sits a thinking
     How the country's drifting to a sad condition;
     Here I sits a dreaming, here I sits a drinking,
     Here I sits a dreading, dreading prohibition,
     “When in comes Nanny, my little daughter's
           daughter;
     Me she has been begging ever since October
     For to sign the pledge! It's ended now in slaughter--
     I never had the courage when she caught me sober!
     “All around the world little tots are begging
     Grandpas and daddies for to quit their lushing.
     Reformers eggs 'em on. I am tired of egging!
     Tired of being cowed, cowering and blushing!
     “I struck for freedom! I'm a man of mettle!
     Though I never would 'a' done it had I not been
          drinking--
     From Athabasca south to Popocatapetl
     We must strike for freedom, quit our shrinking!”
      Said the second old man, “I beg your pardon!
     Brother, please forgive me, my words were hasty!
     I get your viewpoint, our hearts must harden!
     Try this ale, it is bitter, brown and tasty.”
      Said the first old man, “Hear me sobbing.
     “Poor little Nanny, she's gone to Himmel.
     Principle must conquer, though hearts be throbbing!
     Just curl your lip around this kimmel!”
      Down in a wine vault underneath the city
     They sat drinking while the snow was falling,
     Wicked old men with scarcely any pity--
     The moral of my tale is quite appalling!




X--ANACREON


     To Ned Ranck


     In the sunless land where thou art gone,
     The shadowy realm of Proserpine,
     Hast wine to drink, Anacreon?
     Still hast thy lute its laughing tone,
     Still do thy nymphs the ivy twine,
     In the sunless land where thou art gone?
     A Bacchus on a reeling throne,
     Thy temples bound with trailing vine,
     Hast wine to drink, Anacreon?
     From cool deep caves of delved stone,
     Do slaves still fetch thee Samian wine,
     In the sunless land where thou art gone?
     Or is a cup's mere semblance shown,
     Then snatched from those parch'd lips of thine?---
     Hast wine to drink, Anacreon?

     Like Tantalus dost thou make moan,
     Plagued by a mockery malign?
     In the sunless land where thou art gone
     Hast wine to drink, Anacreon?




XI--THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE OLD DAYS


To George Van Slyke


     Gog was a giant,
     Likewise so was Magog;--
     Gog says, “It's Christmas,
     Please pass the Egg-nog!”
      Gurgle! Gurgle! Gurgle!
     Glug! Glug! Glug!
     Gog says to Magog,
     “It is full of Nutmeg,--
     Guzzle! Guzzle! Guzzle!
     Glog! Glog! Glog!”
      Magog says to Gog,
     “Have some Haig and Haig!”
      Gargle! Gargle! Gargle!
     Grog! Grog! Grog!”
      Gog says to Magog,
     “Your eyes are all a-goggle!
     You are all agog!”
      Magog says to Gog,
     “Your feet wiggle-woggle,

     You're gigglish as a gargoyle
     And logey as a log!”
      Gog says to Magog,
     “I'm as gleg as a grig!
     Gurgle! Gurgle! Gurgle!
     Glug! Glug! Glug!”
      Magog says to Gog,
     “I'm jolly as a polly--
     Wiggle--waggle--wog
     That's turning to a froggle,
     A friggle--fraggle--frog!
     Guggle! Guggle! Guggle!
     Glog! Glog! Glog!”
      And Gog filled his noggin,
     And Magog his mug,--
     Magog was a giant,
     Likewise so was Gog;
     On New Year's morning
     Both were on their legs,
     And sat down to breakfast
     And ordered ham and eggs!




XII--IN AN OLD-TIME TAVERN BOOTH


To Ben De Casseres


     Drinking, I doze, and see the gods go by;
     They wave to me the hand of comradeship,
     For I am one with them, and at my lip
     The cup of wisdom bubbles ... up the sky
     A blur of moondust drifts to dull mine eye,
     But through the veil my romping visions slip
     To dance among the careless stars, outstrip
     The racing planets where they swoop and fly,
     And then . . . from somewhere east of Mars
          a keen
     Thin wind whines for a Dime; I drop one in
     A sad Salvation Army tambourine
     And hear a weary homily on Sin . . .
     “Sister,” I say, “you're right, and yet the Truth
     Sometimes sits near me in this tavern booth.”




XIII--THE OLD BRASS RAILING


To Charley Still


     Our minds are schooled to grief and dearth,
     Our lips, too, are aware,
     But our feet still seek a railing
     When a railing isn't there.
     I went into a druggist's shop
     To get some stamps and soap,--
     My feet rose up in spite of me
     And pawed the air with hope.
     I know that neither East nor West,
     And neither North nor South,
     Shall rise a cloud of joy to shed
     Its dampness on my drouth,--.
     I know that neither here nor there,
     When winds blow to and fro,
     Shall any friendly odours find
     The nose they used to know,--


[Ill 0127]


     No stein shall greet my straining eyes,
     No matter how they blink,
     Mine ears shall never hear again
     The highball glasses clink,--
     There is not anywhere a jug
     To cuddle with my wrist,--
     But my habituated foot
     Remains an optimist!
     It lifts itself, it curls itself,
     It feels the empty air,
     It seeks a long brass railing,
     And the railing isn't there!
     I do not seek for sympathy
     For stomach nor for throat,
     I never liked my liver much--
     'T is such a sulky goat!--
     I do not seek your pity for
     My writhen tongue and wried,
     I do not ask your tears because
     My lips are shrunk and dried,--
     But, oh! my foot! My cheated foot!
     My foot that lives in hope!
     It is a piteous sight to see
     It lift itself and grope!
     I look at it, I talk to it,
     I lesson it and plead,
     But with a humble cheerfulness,
     That makes my heart to bleed,
     It lifts itself, it curls itself,
     It searches through the air,
     It seeks a long brass railing,
     And the railing isn't there!
     I carried it to church one day--
     O foot so fond and frail!
     I had to drag it forth in haste:
     It grabbed the chancel rail.
     My heart is all resigned and calm,
     So, likewise, is my soul,
     But my habituated foot
     Is quite beyond control!
     An escalator on the Ell
     Began its upward trip,
     My foot reached up and clutched the rail
     And crushed it in its grip.
     It grabs the headboard of my bed
     With such determined clasp
     That I'm compelled to scald the thing
     To make it loose its grasp.
     Sometimes it leaps to clutch the curb
     When I walk down the street--
     Oh, how I suffer for the hope
     That lives within my feet!
     Myself, I can endure the drouth
     With stoic calm, and prayer--
     But my feet still seek a railing
     When a railing isn't there.




XIV--ONCE YOUTH WAS MINE


To Frank Stanton


     Once the wild raptures and the beating wings
     Of Song were mine, the sun, the climbing flight;
     The wind's great fellowship upon the height. . . .
     Once Youth was mine, and the young heart that
          sings!
     But now the little things, the trivial things,
     Beat down my spirit with their leagued might . . .
     Could I, within some friendly Dive to-night,
     Meet the Old Gang, 'twould make me young, by
          jings!
     As the mad lark rises, drunk with joy and sun,
     When morning bends above the dewy meadow,
     And his clear call proclaims: “The day is won!”
      Over a hurried rout of driven shadow,
     So should I rise and sing, had I a Bun.
     O would that we were soused together, Kiddo!




XV--IN A TAVERN BOOTH


To Bob Lillard


     Out of my forehead now the long thoughts reach
     In level rays that melt the Pleiades,
     Which, melting, somehow smell like toasted
          cheese . . .
     I know Life's secret now, but have no speech
     To utter it: indeed, small wish to teach
     My truths to trivial planets such as these
     Whereon the populations drone like bees
     That have no honey-gift, each stinging each . . .
     And yet I will speak, too!... the slow words
          come
     With pain out of my deeps of ecstasy,
     Burst from my soul as from a beaten drum
     In a hoarse pulse of sound . . . But hark to
          me!
     “Life's secret is that all things cool somewhat
     Like golden bucks”...but, somehow, that
          seems rot.




XVI--AN ENGAGEMENT


To Kit Morley


     There is a place, not far from Gissing Street,
     In Paradise, where one can dream and laugh
     You go through Shelley Lane, striking your staff
     Upon the cobbles, turn with eager feet
     Down Benêt Place, and there you are! I'll meet
     You, Christopher, and we shall quarrel and quaff
     Our pewter tankards full of Shandygaff,
     And eat and eat and eat and eat and eat!
     And must we die first? Well, it's worth the trouble
     I shall go first, because I'm old and gray,
     And permanently I'll reserve a booth--
     And when you come, no doubt I'll see you double,
     And as you land from Charon's skiff I'll say:
     “Here, kid, taste this! Roll this upon your tooth!'




XVII--THE BATTLE OF THE KEYHOLES


To Jimmy Farnsworth


     The keyholes to the right of me
     Were dancing of a jig,
     The keyholes to the left of me
     Were merry as a grig,
     The keyholes right before my face
     Were drunk and winked at me,
     And I stood there alone--alone!--
     With one
     small
     key.

     They frightened me, they daunted me;
     I turned back to the stair,
     And faced nine keyholes pale and stern
     That lay in ambush there.
     Six keyholes on the ceiling sat,
     Eight keyholes on the door,
     And seven saddened keyholes lay
     Hiccoughing
     on the
     floor.

     I crawled through one, I crawled through two,
     I crawled through keyholes three--
     And then I saw a vistaed mile
     Of keyholes waiting me!--
     “I will not crawl another yard
     Through keyholes, though I die!”--
     Oh, when my fighting blood is up
     A Turk
     am.

     They leapt at me, they flew at me,
     They whistled as they came,
     They gritted of their gleaming teeth,
     They stung and spurted flame;
     I put my back against the floor
     And fought 'em gallantly--?
     But what could anybody do
     With one
     small
     key?

     Keyholes at the front of me,
     And keyholes on the flank,
     And as they rushed at me I smelled
     The liquor that they drank;
     Keyholes on my spinal cord,
     And keyholes in my hair--
     And with a “Heave together, boys!”
      They rolled
     me down
     the stair.

     It bumped me some, it bent me some,
     It broke a nose or two,
     And when the milkman came, he said:
     “What Kaiser Belgiumed you?”
      I says to him: “It might have been
     The same with you as me
     If you like me had had to fight
     A gang of keyholes all last night
     With one
     small
     key!”




XVIII--IN A TAVERN BOOTH


To Sam McCoy


     I thought a Sun pursued; through endless space
     I fled the following thunder of his feet;
     Snorting he came, his breath a withering heat,
     Blown soot of cindered comets freakt his face;
     My hide caught fire and crackled with the pace,
     My burning heart with jets of anguish beat;
     Flaming I leapt, in flame leapt on the fleet
     And savage star . . .  We slashed our fiery trace
     Ten constellations broad in screaming red
     Across the startled purple of the night;
     A word tremendous clove mine ears and head,
     A great arm fell and stripped my wings of flight:
     “Hey, Mister, pay your check!” a brute voice said.
     It was a red-haired barkeep known as Ed.




XIX--YEARNINGS AND MEMORIES


To Jimmy Fisher


     Liquor there is--but how I miss the Bar!
     I miss a certain attitude of mind,
     Congenial, which I seek but never find
     Except beneath the golden triple star
     Which from the brandy bottle shines afar.
     I miss a type of jest that was designed
     For roaring barrooms warmed with booze, and
          kind--
     Good Gawd! how coarse and low my real tastes are.
     I miss an ambling, splay-foot waiter's beak,
     Which like some red peninsula of hell
     Glowed through the humming barroom's smoky
          reek--
     I miss the lies I used to hear men tell
     Over the telephone to waiting wives--
     What sweet aromas had these joyous lives!




XX--DO YOU REMEMBER?


To Harry Dixey


     Do you remember that first Morning Drink
     When Ed would smile and say, “What shall it be?”
      “Would you advise a Gin Fizz, Ed, for me?”
      “It is too early for a Fizz, I think.”
      “And would an Absinthe put me on the blink,
     I wonder, Ed?”--“Absinthe would not agree
     This morning, sir.”--“Then what's your recipe?”
      “A bland Club Cocktail, delicate and pink!”
      O kindly Barkeeps that have raised me up
     From morning glooms and made me live again,
     Where are ye now, and where your wizardry?
     As dead as great Ulysses' faithful pup!
     As dead as Babylon and James G. Blaine!
     As dead as Gyp the Blood and Nineveh!




XXI--AND YOU MAY KECALL THIS


To Charley Edson


     --“I wanchya meeta 'nol' 'nol frien' o' mine!”
      --” Umgladdameecha! Bill's frien's my frien's, too!”
      --“Thish frien' besh frien'! I gotto open wine!”
      --“You gotto le' me buy thish drink f'r you!”
      --“I gotto buy thish drink f'r 'nol' 'nol' frien'!”
      --“Now, lishen, Jim! You gonna love thish lad!”
      --“Billsh friensh is my friensh to th' bitter en'!”
      --“Now, lishen, Jim! thish besh frien' ever had!”
      Honest, hardworking drunkards! Hour by hour
     They toiled on at their chosen task until
     They bent beneath the burdens that they bore,
     They bent and swayed, sustained but by the power,
     Each one, of his Indomitable Will,
     Which ever bade him conquer Just One More.




XXII--TRUE, BUT WHAT OF IT?


To Gilbert Gabriel


     Old Demon Rum, they say you ruined homes,
     Bashing the piteous Wife betwixt her eyes.
     Stabbing Aunt Tildy with her own hair-combs,
     And teaching your young offspring stealth and lies
     Angel! they say that one night, lost to grace,
     You filched the infant's coral from her crib,
     Hocked it, and blew the loot at Leery's Place-
     Then strangled Baby Sister in her bib
     Because it purchased only sixteen beers!
     Demon! they say you used to cut up rough,
     Sowing the earth with poverty and tears--
     And I believe it readily enough!
     I do admit your crimes as charged above,
     But, Angel! crime can never kill my love!




XXIII--A SUMMER DAY DREAM


To Foster Follett


     If there were many miles of me
     How I would love to trail
     My length along the cooling sea
     Above the brown sea kale.
     Were there five thousand feet of me
     Instead of five feet four,
     A thousand times as cool I'd be
     Swimming from shore to shore.
     And when I saw a brewery
     Upon some cape or isle
     I'd crawl out of the dripping sea
     And greet it with a smile.
     Then all my lovely coils I'd wrap
     Around that brewery,
     And when I'd squeezed out every drap
     Slide back into the sea.




XXIV--ON SWEARING OFF AGAIN


To Dan Carey

     [Ill 0144]


     Barleycorn, my jo John!
     They say that we must part!
     'Twill mend my stomach, maybe,
     But, O! it breaks my heart!
     I hoped that we should grow old
     Cheek by jowl together,
     Boozing by the fireside
     Through the wintry weather;--
     With white hair and red face,
     Full of dreams and liquor,
     Watching from an armchair
     The firelight flicker;--

     But Barleycorn, my jo John,
     Fare ye well forever!--
     The preachers have my soul, John,
     The doctors have my liver!
     And I shall have an old age
     Dry and dull as virtue--
     But never think, my dear friend,
     I'm happy to desert you!
     Barleycorn, my jo John!
     To think that we should part--.
     They say 'twill save my eyesight,
     But, O; it breaks my heart!




XXV--AFTER SEVERAL HIGHBALLS


To Clive Weed


     I saw three roses on the wall,
     Three red, red roses on the wall,
     Repeated in a pattern:
     The first, I Cleopatra call,
     The second one's named Sadie Hall,
     The third one is a slattern.
     Three flowers, all curlycues and swirls,
     Each blare-mouthed like a trumpet;
     One used to fish for swine with pearls,
     The second was the best of girls,
     The third one was a strumpet.
     Three red-mouthed roses on the wall
     As bright and hot as blood;
     The first one caused an empire fall,
     The second was just Sadie Hall,
     The third died in the mud.




XXVI--CHANT ROYAL OF THE DEJECTED DIPSOMANIAC


To Hal Steed


     Some fools keep ringing the dumb waiter bell
     Just as I finish killing Uncle Ned;
     I wonder if they could have heard him yell?
     A moment since I cursed at them and said:
     “This is a pretty time to bring the ice!”
      --Old Uncle Ned! Two times of late, or thrice,
     I've thought of prodding him with something keen,
     But always Fate has seemed to intervene;
     Last night, for instance, I was in the mood,
     But I was far too drunken yestere'en-----
     My way of life can end in nothing good!
     At Mrs. Dumple's, last week, when I fell
     And spoiled her dinner party I was led
     Out to a cab; they saw I was not well
     And took me home and tucked me into bed.
     I should quit mingling hashish with my rice!
     I should give over singing “Three Blind Mice”

     At funerals! Why will I make a scene?
     Why should I feed my cousins Paris Green?
     I am increasingly misunderstood:
     When I am tactless, people think 'tis spleen.
     My way of life can end in nothing good.
     Why should one cry that he is William Tell,
     Then flip a pippin from his hostess' head
     That none but he can see? Why should one dwell
     Upon the failings of the newly wed
     At wedding breakfasts? Can I not be Nice?
     I am so silly and so full of vice!
     Such prestidigitator tricks, I ween,
     As finding false teeth in a soup tureen
     Are not real humour; they are crass and crude,
     And cast suspicion on the host's cuisine:
     My way of life can end in nothing good.
     My wife and her best friend, a social swell,
     Zoo-ward I lured to see the cobras fed;--
     “We can't get home,” I giggled, “for the El
     Is broken, Sarah--let's elope, instead!”
      I spoke of all she'd have to sacrifice,
     And she seemed yielding to me, once or twice,
     Until my wife broke in and said: “Eugene,
     Your finger nails are seldom really clean;--
     I'd loose poor Sarah's hand, Eugene, I would!”
      How weak and stupid I have always been!
     My way of life can end in nothing good.
     I drink and doze and wake and think of hell,
     My eyes are blear from all the tears I shed:
     I'm pitiably bald: I'm but a shell!
     I sobbed to-day, “I wish that I were dead!”
      I wish I could quit drugs and drink and dice.
     I wish I had not talked of chicken lice
     The Sunday that we entertained the Dean,
     Nor shouted to his wife that paraffin
     Would make her thin beard grow, nor played the
          food
     Was pennies and her face a slot machine:
     My way of life can end in nothing good.
     --That bell again: A voice: “Is your name Bryce?
     These goods is C. O. D. Send down the price!”
      “Bryce lives,” I yell, “at Number Seventeen!”
      Bryce doesn't live there, but I feel so mean
     I laugh and lie; my tone is harsh and rude.
     --Uncle is gone! I'm phthisical and lean--
     My way of life can end in nothing good!




XXVII--PROVERBS XXIII, 29


To Oliver Herford


     From many a classic scroll and tome
     In golden texts the warnings shine:
     “If you must drink, get soused at home!
     Will you get pickled? Then use brine!”
      Each generation gets a sign,
     But each one needs another prod
     From scriptures human or divine--
     The Wastrel always drops his Wad!
     Sleek Athens from the Attic loam
     With ill intention coaxed the vine--
     Arcadian Simps admired the foam
     While hair-oiled City Gents malign
     Dropped philters in the neatherd's stein--
     Soon Corydon upon the sod
     Lay coinless with a cloven chine--
     The Wastrel always drops his Wad!

     When Gallic ginks Cook-toured to Rome,
     Or roaring Teutons from the Rhine,
     The thought would fill some yokel's dome
     To dally with the stranger's wine--
     Next reel: tough students sprain his spine
     And bean him with a curule rod
     And roll him down the Palatine:
     The Wastrel always drops his Wad!
     Raus! Bacchus, with that breath of thine,
     And sad eyes like a bilious cod!
     Me for the Tracts--I've learned, in fine,
     The Wastrel always drops his Wad!




XXVIII--AN OBJECT LESSON


To Bobby Rogers


[Ill 0152]


     A young man in a Mu-se-um
     Was showing me a mummy
     Who lay there patiently, but glum,
     A-clasping of his tummy. . .
     Cophetua or Kafoozelum,
     Or some such regal rummy.
     “In youth,” says I, “this king was gay,
     In spite of Mrs. Grundy;
     He burnt the Nile one Saturday,

     But where was he on Sunday?”
      I added, in my learned way,
     “'Sic transit gloria mundi!'
     “He conquered princes not a few;
     They voted as he bid 'em.
     From Babylon to Timbuctoo,
     From Sheba up to Siddim,
     He thought of things he shouldn't do,
     And then he went and did 'em!
     “He loved to send out royal bids
     For high Egyptian jinkses
     Where pretty Theban katydids
     And little Memphian minxes
     Would trot among the pyramids
     And tango round the sphinxes . . .
     “But now, in his sarcophagus,
     How quite deceased we find him,
     With sand in his aesophagus
     And all his past behind him,
     While Time (the anthropophagus!)
     Is whetting teeth to grind him.
     “Then note, my lad, the end of kings!
     Therefore, avoid ambition,
     For earthly greatness all has wings.
     You stick to your position,
     And if men come with crowns and things
     To tempt you, go a-fishin'!”
      “Was I a Kingly Souse,” says he,
     Impressed from A to Izzard,
     “Would I wind up so leathery
     As this departed wizard,
     With baldness on the dome of me,
     And gravel in my gizzard?”
      “You would without a doubt,” says I,
     “Lose wealth and health and hair, O!”
      Shaken with sobs he made reply,
     “I promise, and I swear, O!
     That I will never drink!--and try
     And never be a Pharaoh!”




XXIX--A KANSAS TRAGEDY


To Charley Stansbury


     I started from Missouri,
     The western part of Missouri,
     To ride to Nicodemus,
     To Nicodemus, Kansas,
     In the western part of Kansas;
     Not far from Happy, Kansas,
     In Graham County, Kansas . . .
     Across the State of Kansas I started in a flivver . . .
     A jolty little flivver with a rhythm rather jerky . . .
     Irregularly rhythmical, when rhythmical at all . . .
     I had to get to Nicodemus
     By noon on Saturday to pay the mortgage
     On a farm near Nicodemus,
     Graham County, Kansas,
     Belonging to a sweetheart who would otherwise be
          rooned
     Financially and so could not afford to marry me. . . .
     As I entered into Kansas,
     And crossed Miami County,
     At the town of Ossawatomie
     I received a telegraphic message
     From my love at Nicodemus.
     “Hasten with the money,” said the telegraphic
          message,
     “Hasten with the money you are bringing from my
          Uncle.
     From my Uncle Jethro, in Missouri,
     For the man that holds the mortgage,
     Banker Jasper Grinder, who holds the fiendish
     mortgage,
     Has said he will foreclose it
     And take away the homestead at noon on Saturday,
     Or else I'll have to marry him,
     To keep him from foreclosing,
     Marry Banker Jasper Grinder to keep him from
     foreclosing . . .
     I would hate to marry Grinder,
     But, on the other hand,
     I would hate to lose the whole alfalfa crop .  .  .
     Hasten with the money,
     From my Uncle Jethro,
     Hasten to your true love, Miss Elvira Simpkins,
     At Nicodemus, Kansas.”
      Three hundred miles away
     Was Nicodemus, Kansas,
     Nicodemus, Graham County,
     Not so far from Happy, Kansas
     Could I do it in a flivver
     In ten hours?
     from Ossawatomie I started with a burst of speed,
     That carried me to Quenemo,
     To Quenemo, in Osage County, Kansas,
     At the rate of forty miles an hour .  .  .
     At a garage in Quenemo
     I paused for gasolene,
     At Quenemo, in Osage County, Kansas .  .  .
     But the man that ran the place
     With shrill bucolic snicker
     Said: “There ain't no gasolene!
     The gasolene in Kansas
     Has all been took and contrabanded,
     Leastways, commandeered,
     Just one hour ago,
     By order of the Governor,
     The Governor of Kansas,
     On account of military operations “...
     No gasolene in Kansas!
     And three hundred miles away my love,
     My love, Elvira Simpkins,
     Was waiting for the money I had got from Uncle
          Jethro
     To save the home at Nicodemus
     From the clutch of Jasper Grinder!
     “I will telegraph the money!” I shouted
     With a flash of inspiration.  .  .
     But the station agent told me,
     “There ain't no telegraph nor nothing
     Runs into Nicodemus,
     To Nicodemus, Kansas.
     As fur as I can see in this here book!”
      And I looked at the wire from Elvira again
     And saw it had been sent from Happy, Kansas,
     And all the time the precious
     Minutes fluttered by
     Banker Jasper Grinder, in Nicodemus, Kansas,
     Minute after minute,
     Was approaching nearer to the hour of his desire . . .
     I could hear him chuckle,
     The dry and throaty chuckle that village bankers
          chuckle
     In the semi-arid regions
     Another inspiration came to me and I cried:
     “I will run my flivver
     To Nicodemus, Kansas,
     On alcohol, by heck!
     I can make the engine in my little flivver
     Run to Nicodemus, Kansas,
     On alcohol, by Henry!”
      But the crowd that gathered around me
     Laffed and laffed and laffed . . .
     “They ain't no alcohol in Kansas,”
      Said the crowd, between its chortles--
     “Kansas is a dry State,
     It's prohibition Kansas,
     And you'll never get to Nicodemus
     Graham County, Kansas,”
      Just then the village toper
     A gentle creature and decayed
     Thrust into my hand a gallon
     Of Stutter's Stomach Bitters,
     He handed me four big quarts
     Of Stutter's Stomach Bitters,
     And I poured 'em in the tank and left the town of
     Quenemo, with the engine doing lovely
     And the flivver going strong
     And I reached the town of Skiddy,
     The town of Skiddy, Kansas, in Morris County,
          Kansas,
     And I drew up by the drug store and I yelled
     For Stutter's Stomach Bitters . . .
     “I must reach Elvira Simpkins, in Nicodemus,
          Kansas,
     'Ere the clock strikes 12 . . .
     Give me Bitters, give me Bitters!
     Fill the tank with Bitters, for I race to raise the
     mortgage
     But the druggist said: “There's been a run on Bitters!
     Considerable colic in this watermelon weather!--
     How about Stewroona?”
      On a gallon of Stewroona I ran from Skiddy, Kansas,
     As far as Elmo, Kansas,
     And there I laid in nineteen quarts
     Of prohibition appetizer:
     Doctor Bunkus's Discovery for Kidneys
     Westward, aver westward;”:
     To my love,- Elvira Simpkins
     At Nicodemus, Kansas,
     I ran on Doctor Bunkus, through the dryest belt of
          Kansas,
     Through the prohibition centre,
     Dear Old Doctor Bunkus urged my little flivver;
     From Elmo, to Palacky,
     Six quarts of Lily Gingham's Discovery
     And a dozen more of Bunkus
     Took me nearer, nearer, nearer,
     To my love, Elvira Simpkins .  .  .
     From Palacky west to Pfeifer,
     Through the town of Fingal,
     Then northward to Ogallah,
     I ran on Si wash Injun Soorah,
     A Remedy for Liver Trouble,
     Take a wineglass full before each meal.
     Nearer, ever nearer, to my love at Nicodemus
     From Ogallah north to Happy,
     North to Happy, Kansas, in Graham County,
          Kansas,
     North and west to Happy, word of glorious omen . . .
     And the villagers came down to sniff the glad aroma
     Of the flying flivver
     As I turned north to Nicodemus
     At thirteen minutes until noon,
     Filled once more with! Stutter's Stomach Bitters
     I raced into the presence of my love,' Elvira Simpkins.
     Alas! Alas! Ala:
     Elvira did not clasp me in her sturdy Kansas
           arms
     She sniffed the air and said:
     “I never will be wedded
     To a man who reeks with liquor!
     Give me Uncle Jethro's money!
     And don't you leave that drunken flivver on the
           streets of Nicodemus.
     And she went and married Jasper Grinder after all.


THE END












End of Project Gutenberg's The Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell, by Don Marquis

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51920 ***