The first mention of it came from Abe Hopkinson, who dealt in dry-goods and canned "truck." He was sitting with his feet thrust upon a table in the office of the Russell Hotel early one evening. For some time he had been reflectively chewing. Suddenly his face flushed with emotion. He could stand the doubt no longer.
"Say," he cried, thumping one heavily shod foot upon the well-worn blotter, and setting the inkstand rattling, "wot's hit old leather-belly?"
His inelegant inquiry was addressed to the company generally. Pete Farline, famed for his bad drugs and antiquated "notion" department, breathed a deep sigh of relief.
"I'm glad you ast that, Abe," he said. "I've been troubled some. Guessed I'd have to hit the water-wagon a piece."
Sid Ellerton looked up from the pages of a cheap magazine.
"Meaning the whisky souse from Scotland, via Deep Willows?" he asked vaguely, and returned to his reading.
A fair-haired little man, by name Josh Taylor, who spent his winter days dissecting frozen beef, and his summer evenings in his butcher's store smashing flies on the sides of beef with the flat of a knife, mildly reproved him.
"Guess you read too much fiction, Sid. It makes you ask fool questions. Who else would Abe be talkin' of but that haggis-faced moss-back from the Hebrides? Ain't he made us all feel queer these days an' days? Say, he's gettin' that soft I get around dead scared he'll get a fancy to kiss me."
Abe grinned over at Josh's hard face, with its unshaven chin, and his hair standing rigidly on his bullet head.
He shook his head.