“Yes?” said the bartender.
“Yes, sir, I am feeling a little out of sorts today, and it always makes me real cross and impatient when I get that way. A little gin and bitters always helps me. It was six times, I think, that I fired, the time I was telling you about. Straight whisky would do if the gin is out.”
“If I had any fly paper,” said the bartender, sweetly, “I would stick you on it and set you in the back window; but I am out, consequently, I shall have to adopt harsher measures. I shall tie a knot in this towel, and then count ten, and walk around the end of the bar. That will give you time to do your shooting, and I’ll see that you let out that same old yell that you spoke of.”
“Wait a moment,” said the meek man. “Come to think of it, my doctor ordered me not to drink anything for six weeks. But you had a narrow escape all the same. I think I shall go down to the next drug store and fall in a fit on the sidewalk. That’s good for some peppermint and aromatic spirits of ammonia, anyhow.”
A Years Supply
He was one of the city’s wealthiest men, but he made no ostentatious display of his wealth. A little, thin, poorly clad girl stood looking in the window of the restaurant at the good things to eat. The man approached and touched her on the shoulder.
“What is your name, little girl?” he asked.
“Susie Tompkins, sir,” she answered, looking up at him with great, haunting, blue eyes.
There was something in her pleading, innocent voice that stirred a strange feeling in the millionaire’s heart. Still it may have been indigestion.
“Have you a father?” he asked.