“I’m broke, similar,” said the ex-medium, “and my nerves is a-sufferin’ from a severe disruption.”
Coffee John thumped his red fist upon the table.
“Bryce up, gents!” he exclaimed. “Remember there’s nothink in the ryce but the finish, as the dark ’orse says, w’en ’e led ’em up to the wire! They’s many a man ’as went broke in this ’ere tarn, an’ ’as lived to build a four-story ’ouse in the Western Addition; an’ they’s plenty more as will go broke afore the trams stop runnin’ on Market Street! This ’ere is a city o’ hextremes, you tyke me word for thet! It ain’t on’y that Chinatarn is a stone’s throw from the haristocracy o’ Nob Hill, an’ they’s a corner grocery with a side entrance alongside of every Methody chapel. It ain’t on’y that the gals here is prettier an’ homblier, an’ stryter an’ wickeder than anyw’eres else in Christendom, but things go up an’ darn every other wye a man can nyme. It’s corffee an’ sinkers to-dye an’ champyne an’ terrapin to-morrer for ’arf the people what hits the village. They’s washwomen’s darters wot’s wearin’ of their dimonds art on Pacific Avenoo, an’ they’s larst year’s millionaires wot’s livin’ in two rooms darn on Minnie Street. It’s the wye o’ life in a new country, gents, but they’s plums a-gettin’ ripe yet, just the syme, every bleedin’ dye, I give yer my word! Good Lawd! Look at me, myself! Lemme tell yer wot’s happened to me in my time!”
And with this philosophic introduction, Coffee John began
THE STORY OF BIG BECKY
When I fust struck this ’ere port, I was an yble seaman on the British bark Four Winds art o’ Iquique, with nitrytes, an’ I was abart as green a lad as ever was plucked. When I drored the nine dollars that was a-comin’ to me, I went ashore an’ took a look at the tarn, an’ I decided right then that this was the plyce for me. So I calmly deserts the bark, an’ I ain’t set me foot to a bloomin’ gang-plank from that dye to this, syvin’ to tyke the ferry to Oakland.
Me money larsted abart four dyes. The bleedin’ sharks at the sylor boardin’-’ouse charged five, a femile in a box at the “Golden West” darnce-hall got awye with three more, an’ the rest was throwed into drinks promiscus. The fourth dye in I ’adn’t a bloomin’ penny to me nyme, an’ I was as wretched as a cow in a cherry-tree. After abart twelve hours in “’Ell’s Arf-Acre” I drifted into a dive, darn on Pacific Street, below Kearney, on the Barbary Coast, as was the Barbary Coast in them dyes! It was a well-known plyce then, an’ not like anythink else wot ever done business that I ever seen, “Bottle Myer’s” it was; per’aps yer may have heard of it? No?
Yer went in through a swing door with a brarss sign on, darn a ’allwye as turned into a corner into a wider plyce w’ere the bar was, an’ beyond that to a ’all that might ’ave ’eld, I should sye, some sixty men or thereabart. The walls was pynted in a blue distemper, but for a matter of a foot or so above the floor there was wot yer might call a dydo o’ terbacker juice, like a bloomin’ coat o’ brarn pynte. The ’all smelled full strong o’ fresh spruce sawdust on the floor, an’ the rest was whiffs o’ kerosene ile, an’ sylor’s shag terbacker an’ style beer, an’ the combination was jolly narsty! Every man ’ad ’is mug o’ beer on a shelf in front of ’is bench, an’ the parndink of ’em after a song was somethink awful. On a bit of a styge was a row of performers in farncy dress like a nigger minstrel show, an’ a beery little bloke sat darn in front, bangin’ a tin-pan pianner, reachin’ for ’is drink with one ’and occysional, withart leavin’ off plyin’ with the other.
Well, after a guy ’ad sung “All through a lydy wot was false an’ fyre,” an’ one o’ the ’ens ’ad cracked art “Darn the lyne to Myry,” or somethink like that, Old Bottle Myer, ’e got up, with a ’ed like a cannon-ball an’ cock eyes an’ eyebrars like bits o’ thatch, an’ a farncy flannel shirt, an’ ’e says:
“If any gent present wants to sing a song, he can; an’ if ’e don’t want to, ’e don’t ’ave to!”