CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—The Old Soak Finds a Way
YES, sir; yes, sir!” said the Old Soak, with a happy smile on his face. “I've done found out the way to beat the game—! Ask me no questions, and I'll tell ye no lies as to how I done it.
“Ye see this here bottle, do ye? Kentucky Bourbon, and nothin' else. Bottled in bond, an' there's plenty more where that comes from.—Ask me no questions, and I'll enrich ye with no misinformations!—Ye see that there little car parked out there by the curbstone, do ye? Well, sir, that there car is my car, and under the back seat of it is twelve quarts of this here stuff!—And it ain't home brewed, neither; it's some of the best liquor you ever throwed your lips over!—How do I do it?—Don't ply me with no questions, and I won't bring you no false witnesses!
“Notice these here new clothes of mine? Well, sir, that there suit's a bargain.—It only cost me two cases of rye.—I got three new suits like that to home, an' I'm figgerin' on buying one of these here low neck an' short sleeve dress suits for to wear to banquets this winter.—They's a whole passel o' folks would like to give me banquets this cornin' season.—How do I do it?—Ask me no questions, and I'll give you no back talk!
“If you was to come out to the house, I'd interduce ye to quite a lot of good liquor.—Can't drink no more, huh?—Ain't ye got a friend ye could bring?—I'd like to have ye meet my son-in-law.
“Yes, sir; yes, sir! Daughter was married two months ago. The youngest one. Her and her husband is makin' their home with us temporary.—I'm tryin' to persuade of 'em to stop to our house permanent.—Yes, sir, my son-in-law, he is one of these here revenooers.—Well, so long!—I gotto see an old friend o' mine that lives up to the Bronx this afternoon.—He ain't had a real drink fer nigh onto three months, he tells me.—I'm headin' a rescue party into them there regions.
“Yes, sir; yes, sir! I figger my daughter married well!—Bring up yer kids in the way they should go like the Good Book says, and Providence will do the rest.—Henry, that's my son-in-law, is figgerin' mebby he can get my son Jim made a revenooer, too.—Ask me no questions, an I'll give away no fambly secrets!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—The History Continued—the Barroom's Good Influence
ANOTHER thing I miss in regard to all them vanished barrooms being closed up is kind feeling about respect to the old especially to parents and them that has departed.
Where is the younger generations of posterity going to learn how to be kind hearted about home and mother now that the barrooms is all closed up I would like to know?
It used to be that a lot of fellows would get all tanked up of an afternoon or evening and in the right sort of a place they would get to singing songs.
All them songs about home and mother and to treat her right now that her hair had turned gray. I never was much of a one to sing myself especially unless I had a few drinks into me.
But whether I helped sing them or not all them songs would make a better man of me. You stand up to a bar or sit down at a table and listen to them songs for two or three hours and if you are any kind of a man at all you will wish you had always done the right thing and now that all them songs about home and mother has been took away from me I ain't the man I used to be at all.
I feel myself going down hill because my softer emotions and feelings ain't never stirred up by nothing any more.
Well, this Eighteenth Commandment is going to make a hard-hearted country out of this here country. Nobody is never going to think as much of home and mother as they used to. And I guess them prohibitionists won't feel so smart when they see all them old ladies with gray hair flung out onto the streets in the rainy weather just because nobody would pay the mortgage off. Lots of times when I was a young feller after hearing them songs for awhile I would say to myself I will set right down and write a letter to my mother, I ain't wrote her for five or six months. And when I got older after she passed on I used to say to myself some of these days I will have to make a visit to the old home place and take a look around there.
But all them softer feelings has been took away from me now and what I would like to know is how is the younger generation going to grow up. Hard hearted, that is how.
Some of these here fine days I may be cast out into the street myself with the rain drops dripping down offen my hat brim into my eyebrows just because nobody won't pay a mortgage and it has got to be a hard-hearted country.
I hope none of them there smart alick Prohis will be flung out onto the street thataway. Because they got no friends would pay off their mortgages and they would just naturally be destituted to death. I ain't hard hearted like they be and I hope that don't happen to none of them. But if it ever did they would find out a few things.
In my next chapter I will get down to brass tacks and give a true description of them barrooms that has perished off the face of the earth.