Some years ago a restaurant keeper had a number of these customers, who were eating him out of house and home. One day he seriously remonstrated with one of his patrons. He told him that unless he and others like him paid up, the house must close.
Said the restaurant man: “Here, now, it has been two weeks since I paid my meat bill. If I don’t pay up this week the butcher will shut down on me, and I can get no more meat. Don’t you see, I shall be obliged to close my house!”
“O, no!” said the customer, “don’t close your house. Keep her open. We’ll all stay by you. If you can’t get any meat, we’ll play you a string on vegetables!”
Even some such customers as pay are a terror to the restaurant keeper. When the check-guerrilla is eating his semi-weekly square meal, the landlord paces the room wringing his hands—eyes red, face flushed, brows corrugated, general aspect venomous.[venomous.] In his walk—as steak after steak disappears—he eyes his customer in a malignant, yet helpless manner. In case of fifteen or twenty such customers arriving in one day, the restaurant keeper generally goes out into his back yard and cuts his throat.
Pat Murphy had the name of being the biggest eater on the Comstock range. He was a very good sort of man, and tried his best not to make his appetite conspicuous, but it was a thing that could not be concealed. In order not to be too hard on any one man, Murphy was in the habit of changing his boarding place quite frequently. On one occasion a new restaurant was opened, and nearly every morning the patrons of the place would ask the landlord if Pat Murphy had not yet come to board with him. The landlord would say that he had seen no man of that name. Finding that the “sports” who were boarding with him continued daily to ask if he had yet seen Murphy, the landlord began to feel that he should like to know something about him. He asked what kind of man Murphy was, and how he would be able to recognize him in case he should come to the restaurant.
“Never mind about how he looks,” said the sports, “you will know him when he comes.”
One morning a tall, gaunt, middle-aged man came edging into the restaurant, and meekly took a seat. The landlord rather liked the appearance of the new customer, and at once went to take his order.
“Landlord,” said the man, “let me have a porther-house steak and onions, some liver and bacon on the side, six fried eggs, a bit of ham, a Jarman pancake, some fried pertaties, a cup of coffee, and a couple of doughnuts, and—if ye have them—a couple of waffles.” When the sports came in to breakfast, the landlord said: “He has been here—I’ve seen Murphy, the man who eats.”
Many of the emigrants from the older states arrive in Washoe with exaggerated notions and with eyes and ears open for strange things of all kinds. Being well aware of this, a Comstocker who dropped in at a chop-house where about a dozen newcomers had just settled in a flock, at two or three adjoining tables, concluded to have some fun with them. Seating himself near them, the Comstocker roared: “Waiter, how long does a man have to sit here before you come to take his order?”
“All right, sir!” said the alert waiter, who was well acquainted with the customer, and saw that he was up to some kind of mischief. “All right! What will you have, sir?”