The bartender asked them what they would have.
The old man leaned across the bar and said hoarsely and mysteriously: “You see, mister, me an’ Lem just sold a load of tomatters and green corn fer nineteen dollars en a half. The old woman at home figgered we’d git just sixteen dollars and a quarter fer the truck, so me and Lem is three twenty-five ahead. When folks makes a big strike they most al’ays gets drunk, and es me and Lem never was drunk, we says, we’ll git drunk and see how it feels. The feelin’s pretty bully, ain’t it?”
“Some think so,” said the bartender, “what’ll you have?”
They both called for whisky and stood against the bar until they had taken some five or six drinks apiece.
“Feel good, Lem?” asked the old man.
“Not a dam bit,” said the son.
“Don’t feel like shoutin’ and raisin’ Cain?”
“No.”
“Don’t feel good at all?”
“No. Feel like the devil. Feel sick, en burnin’ inside.”