"Only about a dollar, Mr. Graves. I never saw such dull times in my life."
"Only about a dollar! Too bad! too bad! I shall be ruined at this rate."
"I really don't know what ails the people now. But 'spose it's these blamenation temperance folks that's doin' all the mischief."
"We must get up something new, Sandy;—something to draw attention to our house."
"So I've been a thinkin'. Can't we get George Washington Dixon to walk a plank for us? That would draw crowds, you know; and then every feller almost that we got in here would take a drink."
"We can't get him, Sandy. He's secured over at the—. But, any how, the people are getting up to that kind of humbuggery; and I'm afraid, that, like the Indian's gun, it would cost in the end more than it came to."
"Couldn't we get a maremaid?"
"A mermaid?"
"Yes, a maremaid. You know they had one in town t'other day. It would be a prime move, if we could only do it. We might fix her up here, just back of where I stand, so that every feller who called to see it would have to come up to the bar, front-face. There'd be no backing out then, you know, without ponying up for a drink. No one would be mean enough, after seeing a real maremaid for nothing, to go away without shelling out a fip for a glass of liquor."
"Nonsense, Sandy! Where are we to get a mermaid?"