"We don't want to get too many! The more we have, the more cider they'll drink up."
"That's right. I guess they'll do."
The cider mill commenced business in earnest that afternoon with a full roster of hands. And they soon demonstrated their sufficiency, for apples were delivered at the press faster than the proprietors could dispose of them. When they had picked up all the apples on the ground they threshed the tree until hardly an apple was left on it; and they even went so far as to pick a bushel of crabapples for their employers.
The result of the afternoon's work (which was well up in the gallons) was placed in a convenient cask equipped with a spigot. Then the enterprise was reorganized as a saloon. Ol' Uncle George's workbench made an ideal bar, at which thirsty customers clamored for beer, liquor, and other ugly-sounding beverages, that Sube and Gizzard as bartenders served with a flourish an expert sodawater clerk might well have envied.
Then the histrionic muse, never far beneath the surface of youth, came forth and transformed the scene into an extemporaneous drama that was a howling success in spite of its leanings towards the morality play. This production, called by its authors, "Ten Knights in a Barroom"—was, in fact, so successful that the players promised themselves the pleasure of repeating it daily during the ensuing month.
But this proved to be impossible; for that night ol' Uncle George was called home by a fire in his shoe store.
The management declined to make use of ol' Uncle George's properties while he remained in town for fear that he might have occasion to use them himself, and thus bring about some slight unpleasantness in their hitherto delightful relations. Meanwhile the members of the company fidgeted and chafed under the delay.
A rehearsal attempted in Canes' barn was, for some unknown reason, a decided frost. Then they tried Stucky Richards' barn, which was right next door to ol' Uncle George's; and although things went somewhat better there, they lacked the zest of the initial performance.
Stucky's properties, as far as they went, were above criticism; his workbench made an excellent bar; his broken chairs were deliciously hopeless; his cuspidor was admitted by all to be much better than ol' Uncle George's; his bottles and glassware were vastly superior; but there he stopped.
He had no cider press, and no means of getting one. He had no cider; and worst of all he had no spigot-equipped cask without which no disreputable saloon can exist.