“No—nor aint a goin’ till I’m ready. An’, look out!” he exclaimed, as the clerk approached him again. “Don’t ye come near me, or I’ll spilter ye!”
I do not know exactly what he meant by this remarkable word, as I have searched in vain for it in the lexicons of several languages; but I suppose he meant something dreadful.
The clerk, however, did not seem inclined, as yet to make any aggressive movement: he merely walked past him, as before and again the pugnacious gentleman stood on the defensive, and personated a first-class pivot. Strange as it may seem, I could not help fancying that if I had been in authority at the hotel, as the clerk was, I would not have trifled quite so long with an insolent drunken man.
While these sage thoughts were revolving in my mind, the clerk seemed to grow all at once inspired with extraordinary courage. Starting suddenly from where he stood, he walked briskly toward the intruder, saying, decidedly:
“Now walk out of here in less than a second!” And he actually laid hands on the big fellow.
The secret of the matter was that two policemen entered at that moment, having been sent for by the clerk at the time of his brief absence from the room; and that was what raised his courage so wonderfully. The two officers walked the pugnacious inebriate out, and the clerk followed him to the door, saying:
“Confound you! You won’t come in here loafing around! Next time you try such a game, I’ll kick you out!”
“Go to——” The sound of the loafer’s voice died away, as he was trotted out by the preservers of the peace, and I am unable to record what the rest of the sentence was.
While at Decatur, Illinois, I heard a conversation between a traveler and an hotel clerk, that strikingly exemplifies the irregularity of western railroad trains.
“What time does the train go to Springfield?” he inquired, at the counter, about eight o’clock in the evening.