"I'd like to get a room," said I.
The man got up slowly, and going to a desk, fumbled about it for a while. At length he brought out an old, dilapidated bank-book, and throwing it open on the counter, asked me, with an indifferent manner, to write down my name.
"I'll take a pen, if you please."
"Oh, yes!" And he hunted about again in the desk, from which, after a while, he brought forth the blackened stump of a quill, and pushed it toward me across the counter.
"Ink," said I—fixing my eyes upon him with a look of displeasure.
"I don't believe there is any," he muttered. "Frank," and he called the landlord's son, going to the door behind the bar as he did so.
"What d'ye want?" a rough, ill-natured voice answered.
"Where's the ink?"
"Don't know anything about it."
"You had it last. What did you do with it?"