In his professional career he had encountered a great many men who did not drink, but most of them 17 smoked, and the others would at least take a cigar home to their friends. But here was a man who refused to come in on a treat at all, and a poor, miserable excuse for a man he was, too, without a word for any one. Mr. Brady’s reflections on the perversity of tenderfeet were cut short by a cold blast of air. The door swung open, letting in a smell of wet greasewood, and an old man, his hat dripping, stumbled in and stood swaying against the bar. His aged sombrero, blacksmithed along the ridge with copper rivets, was set far back on a head of long gray hair which hung in heavy strings down his back, like an Indian’s; his beard, equally long and tangled, spread out like a chest protector across his greasy shirt, and his fiery eyes roved furtively about the room as he motioned for a drink. Black Tex set out the bottle negligently and stood waiting.
“Is that all?” he inquired pointedly, as the old man slopped out a drink.
“Well, have one yourself,” returned the old-timer grudgingly. Then, realizing his breach of etiquette, he suddenly straightened up and included the entire barroom in a comprehensive sweep of the hand.
“Come up hyar, all of yoush,” he said drunkenly. “Hev a drink––everybody––no, everybody––come up hyar, I say!” And the graceless saloon bums dropped their cards and came trooping up together. 18 A few of the more self-respecting men slipped quietly out into the card rooms; but the studious stranger, disdaining such puny subterfuges, remained in his place, as impassive and detached as ever.
“Hey, young man,” exclaimed the old-timer jauntily, “step up hyar and nominate yer pizen!”
He closed his invitation with an imperative gesture, but the young man did not obey.
“No, thank you, Uncle,” he replied soberly, “I don’t drink.”
“Well, hev a cigar, then,” returned the old man, finishing out the formula of Western hospitality, and once more Black Tex glowered down upon this guest who was always “knocking a shingle off his sign.”
“Aw, cut it out, Bill,” he sneered, “that young feller don’t drink ner smoke, neither one––and he wouldn’t have no truck with you, nohow!”
They drank, and the stranger dropped back into his reading unperturbed. Once more Black Tex scrubbed the bar and scowled at him; then, tapping peremptorily on the board with a whiskey glass, he gave way to his just resentment.