The House of Martha

by Frank R. Stockton

I answered that I did not want a room, but the remark about breakfast made me feel that I should like a cup of coffee, and perhaps I might get it here. It might have been a more natural thing to go back to the boat and ask Abner to make me the coffee, but I did not want to go back to the boat. I did not want to wake Walkirk. I did not want to have him with me on shore. I did not want to have him talk to me. My present intention was to go to the yacht as soon as it was reasonable to suppose that its passengers were awake, to see Mrs. Raynor, and say to her what I had to say. I did not feel in the proper spirit for this; but, in the spirit in which I found myself, the less I was trammeled by advice, by suggestions of prudence, and all that sort of thing, the better it would be for me. So I was very glad that my under-study was asleep on the grocery boat, and hoped that he would remain in that condition until I had had my talk with Sylvia's mother.

I put my request to the man and he smiled. "Ye can't get no coffee," he said, "until breakfast time, and that's pretty nigh two hours off. There is people in the place that have breakfast earlier than we do, but we keep boarders, ye know. We've only got Captain Fluke now, but generally have more; and ye couldn't ask a man like Captain Fluke to git up to his breakfast before half past seven. Then ye don't want yer baggage sent fur? Perhaps ye've come ter see friends, an' it's a little airly ter drop in on 'em? Come in, any way, and take a seat."

I accepted the invitation. Sitting indoors might possibly be less dreary than walking out-of-doors.

"Now I tell ye what ye ought to do," continued the man. "Ye ought to take a nip of whiskey with some bitters in it. It's always kinder damp airly in the mornin', and ye must feel it more, bein' in a strange place. I've always thought a strange place was damper, airly in the mornin', than a place ye're used ter; and there's nothin' like whiskey with a little bitters to get out dampness."

I declined to partake of any Central Hotel whiskey, adding that the one refreshment I now needed was a cup of coffee.

"But there's no fire in the kitchen," said he, "and there won't be for ever so long. That's how whiskey comes in so handy; don't have to have no fire. Ye jes' pour it out and drink it, and there's the end of it."

"Not always," I remarked.

"Ye're right there," said he, with a smile. "A good deal depends on how much ye pour." He turned away, but stopped suddenly. "Look here," said he; "if ye say so, I'll make ye a cup of coffee. I've got an alcohol lamp up there that I can boil water with in no time. I'm out of alcohol, but, if you'll pay for it, I'll fill the lamp with whiskey; that'll burn just as well."

I willingly agreed to his proposition, and the man immediately disappeared into the back part of the house.

I sat and looked about the little bar-room, in which there was absolutely nothing of the quaint interest which one associates with a country inn. It was a bare, cold, hard, sandy, dirty room; its air tainted with the stale odors of whiskey, sugar, and wood still wet from its morning mopping. In less than fifteen minutes the man placed before me a cup of coffee and some soda biscuit. The coffee was not very good, but it was hot, and when I had finished it I felt like another man.