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diff --git a/old/51920-h/51920-h.htm b/old/51920-h/51920-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 33ccc31..0000000 --- a/old/51920-h/51920-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4571 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <title> - The Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell, by Don Marquis - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} - .x-small {font-size: 75%;} - .small {font-size: 85%;} - .large {font-size: 115%;} - .x-large {font-size: 130%;} - .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} - .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} - .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} - .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} - .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} - .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; - font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; - text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; - border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -Project Gutenberg's The Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell, by Don Marquis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell - -Author: Don Marquis - -Illustrator: Sterling Patterson - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51920] -Last Updated: March 13, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD SOAK *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - THE OLD SOAK, and HAIL AND FAREWELL - </h1> - <h2> - By Don Marquis - </h2> - <h3> - Line Drawings By Sterling Patterson - </h3> - <h4> - Garden City, N. Y., and Toronto - </h4> - <h4> - Doubleday, Page K Company - </h4> - <h3> - 1921 - </h3> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0010.jpg" alt="0010 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0010.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0011.jpg" alt="0011 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0011.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <h3> - ACKNOWLEDGMENT - </h3> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>OLD SOAK</b> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER ONE—Introducing the Old Soak </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER TWO—Beginning the Old Soak's - History of the Rum Demon </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER THREE—Liquor and Hennery Simms </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER FOUR—The Old Soak's History—The - Barroom as an Educative </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER FIVE—Look Out For Crime Waves! </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER SIX—Continuing the Old Soak's - History—The Barroom and the Arts </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER SEVEN—An Argument With the Old - Woman </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER EIGHT—The Old Soak's History—More - Evils of Prohibition </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER NINE—Preparing for Christmas </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER TEN—Continuing the History—the - Old Soak Fears for the Growing </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER ELEVEN—Jabe Potter's Optimism </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER TWELVE—More of the History—As - It Used to Be of a Morning </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER THIRTEEN—Peace and Contentment </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER FOURTEEN—Continuing the History of - the Rum Demon—Unfermented </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER FIFTEEN—Political Talk </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER SIXTEEN—The History Continued—Prohibition - and Winter Weather </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—The Old Soak Finds a Way - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—The History Continued—the - Barroom's Good Influence </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER NINETEEN—A House Divided </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER TWENTY—Continuing the History of - the Rum Demon—the Barroom and </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE—Sympathy Wanted </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO—The History of the Rum - Demon Concluded—Prohibition </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> <b>HAIL AND FAREWELL</b> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> I—A LAST DRINK </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> II—IN THE OLD DAYS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> III—A DIPSEY CHANTEY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> IV—A CERTAIN CLUB </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> V—A TEMPERANCE TRACT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> VI—A VISION IN THE NIGHT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> VII—THE LAST CASE OF GIN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> VIII—CROWNED SINGERS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> IX—DOWN IN A WINE VAULT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> X—ANACREON </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> XI—THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE OLD DAYS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> XII—IN AN OLD-TIME TAVERN BOOTH </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> XIII—THE OLD BRASS RAILING </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> XIV—ONCE YOUTH WAS MINE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> XV—IN A TAVERN BOOTH </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> XVI—AN ENGAGEMENT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> XVII—THE BATTLE OF THE KEYHOLES </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> XVIII—IN A TAVERN BOOTH </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> XIX—YEARNINGS AND MEMORIES </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> XX—DO YOU REMEMBER? </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> XXI—AND YOU MAY KECALL THIS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> XXII—TRUE, BUT WHAT OF IT? </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> XXIII—A SUMMER DAY DREAM </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> XXIV—ON SWEARING OFF AGAIN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0049"> XXV—AFTER SEVERAL HIGHBALLS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0050"> XXVI—CHANT ROYAL OF THE DEJECTED - DIPSOMANIAC </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0051"> XXVII—PROVERBS XXIII, 29 </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> XXVIII—AN OBJECT LESSON </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0053"> XXIX—A KANSAS TRAGEDY </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - OLD SOAK - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER ONE—Introducing the Old Soak - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0021.jpg" alt="0021 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0021.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>UR friend, the Old - Soak, came in from his home in Flatbush to see us not long ago, in - anything but a jovial mood. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “That there home-made stuff ain't anything to trifle with. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - He had a little of the right sort on his hip, and after refreshing - himself, he announced: - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Have you got any of it written?” we asked him. “Here's the start of it,” - said he. - </p> - <p> - We present it just as the Old Soak penned it. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER TWO—Beginning the Old Soak's History of the Rum Demon - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER THREE—Liquor and Hennery Simms - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0030.jpg" alt="0030 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0030.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “One feller I knowed whose liquor drinking led to bad habits was my old - friend Hennery Simms. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “'I'm falling downstairs,' says Hennery. - </p> - <p> - “'What you doing that fur?' I says. - </p> - <p> - “'I'm drunk, ain't I?' says Hennery. 'You old fool, you knows I always - falls downstairs when I'm drunk.' - </p> - <p> - “'How many times you goin' to fall down these here stairs?' I ast him. - </p> - <p> - “'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. - </p> - <p> - “'If I didn't know I was drunk, I would swear these here stairs was - movin'.' - </p> - <p> - '“They be movin',' I tells him. - </p> - <p> - “'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'. - </p> - <p> - “'They only looks like they was movin' to me because I'm drunk. You can't - fool me.' - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you have any more of your History of the Rum Demon written?” we asked - him. - </p> - <p> - “Uh-huh,” said he, and left us the second installment. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER FOUR—The Old Soak's History—The Barroom as an - Educative Influence - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ELL, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER FIVE—Look Out For Crime Waves! - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0036.jpg" alt="0036 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0036.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HEY'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. - </p> - <p> - “All I say is: <i>Watch out for Crime Waves!</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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: <i>Look Out For Crime Waves!</i> - </p> - <p> - “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—-<i>Look Out - For Crime Waves!</i> - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “Here,” concluded the Old Soak, unscrewing the top of his pocket flask, - “here is to the mammal of unrighteousness!” - </p> - <p> - He deposited on our desk the next installment of his History. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER SIX—Continuing the Old Soak's History—The Barroom and - the Arts - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ELL, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER SEVEN—An Argument With the Old Woman - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0044.jpg" alt="0044 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0044.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “'Well, then,' says she, 'this ain't mince pie. This is raisin pie.' - </p> - <p> - “'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 <i>pie!</i> 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?' - </p> - <p> - '“Well, what are they, then?' she says. - </p> - <p> - '“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!' - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER EIGHT—The Old Soak's History—More Evils of Prohibition - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ELL, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - But now I stick around home a good deal of the time and it leads to words. - </p> - <p> - Well, she says to me, why don't you go and get a job of work of some kind. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, she says, you ought to be ashamed to loaf around home all the time. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, she says, I ain't seen you slaving any lately. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, she says, what rent money them two houses brings in don't any more - than pay for the booze you drink. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, she says, you oughta get a job. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, she says, what is that pappitation from but all the liquor you - drunk. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, she says, what kind of an invention is this you claim you are - thinking up all the time? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - And in just that way Prohibition is breaking up millions and millions of - homes every day. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER NINE—Preparing for Christmas - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0050.jpg" alt="0050 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0050.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">C</span>HRISTMAS,” 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “And every time I wake up I'll crawl out of bed and say to myself: 'Better - have just one more.' - </p> - <p> - “'Well, now,' myself will say to me, 'just <i>one!</i> I really hadn't - orter have that one; I've had so many—but just one goes.' - </p> - <p> - “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: - </p> - <p> - “'Well, old scout, you better have another afore you go. It's gettin' - right like holiday weather outside.' - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “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?' - </p> - <p> - “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.' - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER TEN—Continuing the History—the Old Soak Fears for the - Growing Children - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>NOTHER 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. - </p> - <p> - I guess they didn't think of that, all these here wise Johnnies when they - passed that law. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER ELEVEN—Jabe Potter's Optimism - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>O, 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - He paused a while, refreshed himself from his pocket flask, and then took - up another line of enquiry. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER TWELVE—More of the History—As It Used to Be of a - Morning - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ELL, I promised I - would tell just what those vanished barrooms was like, and I will tell the - truth, so help me. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, you would come in in the morning and you would say, Ed, I ain't - feeling so good this morning. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - What would you say to a little absinthe, says Ed, sympathetic and helpful, - a cocktail or frappy. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - No, Ed, you says, a milk punch is too much like vittles and I can't stand - the idea of vittles. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - How about an old-fashioned whiskey cocktail, says Ed. - </p> - <p> - You feel he is getting nearer to it, and you tell him so, but it don't - seem just like the right thing yet. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - And that is your soul has waked up. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER THIRTEEN—Peace and Contentment - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0066.jpg" alt="0066 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0066.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">P</span>ROHIBITION,” 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER FOURTEEN—Continuing the History of the Rum Demon—Unfermented - Grape Juice - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ELL, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER FIFTEEN—Political Talk - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0073.jpg" alt="0073 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0073.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE Old Soak came - in to see us during the recent Presidential campaign. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER SIXTEEN—The History Continued—Prohibition and Winter - Weather - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ELL, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Yes, sir, Ed says, it is pretty raw. The wind is rawring. What will you - have? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, Ed, I don't want to ketch none of them germs, you would say to him, - and how about some rock and rye. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - And no sooner said than done. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - A good many says Ed they drink too much cold water and it gets to them. - </p> - <p> - I am glad I don't have to go out into the awful heat, you would say. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - I think you are right Ed you says and I was wondering about some beer. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, no sooner said than done. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - That is another thing Prohibition has done to me: it has took away all my - chance for outdoor exercise. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—The Old Soak Finds a Way - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0079.jpg" alt="0079 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0079.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>ES, 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. - </p> - <p> - “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 <i>my</i> 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! - </p> - <p> - “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! - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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!” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—The History Continued—the Barroom's Good - Influence - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0082.jpg" alt="0082 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0082.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>NOTHER 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - I feel myself going down hill because my softer emotions and feelings - ain't never stirred up by nothing any more. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER NINETEEN—A House Divided - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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'. - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER TWENTY—Continuing the History of the Rum Demon—the - Barroom and Manners - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0088.jpg" alt="0088 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0088.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>NOTHER 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. - </p> - <p> - Sure he would say no offence meant. No offence taken you would say to him. - Have one with me he would say. - </p> - <p> - No sooner said than done. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - If any of these here bums tries to roust you out of that seat I will put a - tin ear onto them. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - And she seen you was a gentleman and she smiled at you and you hung onto a - strap and felt good. - </p> - <p> - But nowadays there ain't no manners, with no place to get a drink or - anything. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Well, that's another thing closing the barroom has done. It has took away - all the manners this town ever had. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE—Sympathy Wanted - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>ES,” 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.” - </p> - <p> - And he sighed. - </p> - <p> - “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?” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “'It is,' says Remorse, 'and then some. Conscience and me feels so bad - about it that we're gonna jump off the dock together.' - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “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!' - </p> - <p> - “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.' - </p> - <p> - “'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.' - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - “I reckon,” concluded the Old Soak, “I'll have to go to England.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO—The History of the Rum Demon Concluded—Prohibition - Is Making a Free Thinker of the Old Soak - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>NOTHER thing that - going without barrooms is doing for this country is it is destroying Home - Life. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - No sooner said than done. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - And your friend would say his old woman blowed him up for coming home - pickled. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - What is going to become of a country where all the Home Life is broke up? - </p> - <p> - And what is going to become of the children if there ain't any Home Life - running along smooth any more? - </p> - <p> - These Prohibitionists that is so darned smart never thought of that I - guess when they put that Eighteenth Commandment across onto us. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - HAIL AND FAREWELL - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - I—A LAST DRINK - </h2> - <p> - To George McDaniel - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0103.jpg" alt="0103 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0103.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - II—IN THE OLD DAYS - </h2> - <p> - To Paul Thompson - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - III—A DIPSEY CHANTEY - </h2> - <p> - To Ned Leamy - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0106.jpg" alt="0106 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0106.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - IV—A CERTAIN CLUB - </h2> - <p> - To Winfield Moody - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - V—A TEMPERANCE TRACT - </h2> - <p> - To Bob Dean - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - VI—A VISION IN THE NIGHT - </h2> - <p> - To Grant Rice - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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!” - </pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - VII—THE LAST CASE OF GIN - </h2> - <p> - To Loren Palmer - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - VIII—CROWNED SINGERS - </h2> - <h3> - To Charley Bayne - </h3> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - IX—DOWN IN A WINE VAULT - </h2> - <p> - To Harold Gould - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0118.jpg" alt="0118 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0118.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - X—ANACREON - </h2> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - To Ned Ranck -</pre> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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? -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XI—THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE OLD DAYS - </h2> - <p> - To George Van Slyke - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XII—IN AN OLD-TIME TAVERN BOOTH - </h2> - <p> - To Ben De Casseres - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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.” - </pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XIII—THE OLD BRASS RAILING - </h2> - <p> - To Charley Still - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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,— -</pre> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0127.jpg" alt="0127 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0127.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XIV—ONCE YOUTH WAS MINE - </h2> - <p> - To Frank Stanton - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XV—IN A TAVERN BOOTH - </h2> - <p> - To Bob Lillard - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XVI—AN ENGAGEMENT - </h2> - <p> - To Kit Morley - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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!' -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XVII—THE BATTLE OF THE KEYHOLES - </h2> - <p> - To Jimmy Farnsworth - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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!” - </pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XVIII—IN A TAVERN BOOTH - </h2> - <p> - To Sam McCoy - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XIX—YEARNINGS AND MEMORIES - </h2> - <p> - To Jimmy Fisher - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XX—DO YOU REMEMBER? - </h2> - <p> - To Harry Dixey - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXI—AND YOU MAY KECALL THIS - </h2> - <p> - To Charley Edson - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - —“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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXII—TRUE, BUT WHAT OF IT? - </h2> - <p> - To Gilbert Gabriel - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0047" id="link2H_4_0047"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXIII—A SUMMER DAY DREAM - </h2> - <p> - To Foster Follett - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXIV—ON SWEARING OFF AGAIN - </h2> - <p> - To Dan Carey - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0144.jpg" alt="0144 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0144.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0049" id="link2H_4_0049"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXV—AFTER SEVERAL HIGHBALLS - </h2> - <p> - To Clive Weed - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0050" id="link2H_4_0050"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXVI—CHANT ROYAL OF THE DEJECTED DIPSOMANIAC - </h2> - <p> - To Hal Steed - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0051" id="link2H_4_0051"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXVII—PROVERBS XXIII, 29 - </h2> - <p> - To Oliver Herford - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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! -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0052" id="link2H_4_0052"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXVIII—AN OBJECT LESSON - </h2> - <p> - To Bobby Rogers - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0152.jpg" alt="0152 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0152.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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!” - </pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - XXIX—A KANSAS TRAGEDY - </h2> - <p> - To Charley Stansbury - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - 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. -</pre> - <h3> - THE END - </h3> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell, by Don Marquis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD SOAK *** - -***** This file should be named 51920-h.htm or 51920-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/2/51920/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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