THE Old Soak has been looking rather well for some time; he seems
prosperous and happy, for the most part, and contented with the quantity
and quality of the hootch he has been gettin'. But yesterday he dropped
in to see us with just the slightest shade of gloom on his features. We
asked him about it.
“It's that there son of mine,” he says. “He's too young to know enough
to let well enough alone, like the Good Book says to do. They's a lot of
these young fellers you can't learn nothing to.
“This yere son-in-lawr of mine I been tellin' you about, that is a
revenooer, got my son made into a revenooer, too. And it ain't
long before my son gits jest as good an automobile as the one
my son-in-lawr's been drivin'. And joy out to our house has been
unconcerned, with everyone exceptin' the Ol' Woman, and she's been
prayin' agin the rest of the fambly.
“But this yere son o' mine, he gets too much hootch under his belt one
day, and he gets into this yere brand-new automobile of his'n and he
starts onto one of these yere raids. Which would of been all right,
bein' as it's what a revenooer is for, if he had only used a leetle
bit o' jedgment. But the young has got a lot to learn, and babes and
striplings, the Good Book says, jest naturally has their dam fool
streaks.
“This yere raid my son goes onto turns out all wrong. For whilst he is
pinchin' who does he pinch in the gang of wicked sinners but that there
son-in-lawr of mine, the revenooer as got him his job, said son-in-lawr
bein' off duty and pickled hisself at the time.
“So this here son-in-lawr of mine, he mighty nigh loses of his job as a
revenooer, bein' took up in one of the raids he was legally supposed
to be startin' himself, and they was quite a fuss about it, so I
understand, and the thing was finally settled with a compromise--it
wasn't my son-in-lawr lost his job, but they compromised it and fired my
son out'n his job.
“But now my son, he has went and got sore at my son-in-lawr, and he says
unless he gits his job back as a revernooer he will tell all he knows.
“So my house is a house that is sided against itself, like the Good Book
says, and every member of the fambly has took sides one way or the other
'twixt my son and my son-in-lawr, and the Ol' Woman is agin both on 'em,
and agin me, too--a-prayin' an' a-prayin' an' a-prayin'.
“'You went and prayed for years an' years so as to get prohibish'n,'
I tells her; 'an' now you got it--you got more on it than any woman I
knows, for it's come right into your own home. An' now you got it you
ain't satisfied with it--there you be onto your marrow bones prayin'
agin the revenooers.'
“I s'pose I was too hifalutin' an' ambitious, wantin' to keep two
members of my fambly into the revenooer job. And as long as my
son-in-lawr stays into office and continues to make his home with me I
won't have no kick cornin', but will take my hootch in thankfulness
and humility, like the Good Book says to do, eatin', drinkin' an' bein'
merry. This yere leetle cloud of gloom what you notice is due to the
Ol' Woman's prayers. I cain't help but feel she is goin' direct agin
Scripter and her husband's best intrusts.”
CHAPTER TWENTY--Continuing the History of the Rum Demon--the Barroom and
Manners
[Illustration: 0088]
ANOTHER thing about those barrooms that has been vanished forever is
the fact that most of them was right polite sort of places if a fellow
edged up to the bar and knocked over your glass of whiskey or something
like that he would say, O excuse me stranger and you would say sure, but
look where in hell you are going to after this.
Sure he would say no offence meant. No offence taken you would say to
him. Have one with me he would say.
No sooner said than done.
But nowadays all you see and hear is bad manners and impoliteness with
people hustling and bumping into each other on the subways and stepping
on each other and women and children amongst them and nobody ever
begging anybody's pardon and hard feelings everywhere.
The trouble is everybody is sore and wanting a drink all the time and
there is no place where the younger generation is going to learn good
manners now that the barrooms is gone. What is the young fellows
just growing up to manhood going to do for their manners now that the
barrooms is closed, is what I want to know.
It used to be you would get onto a subway train and there would be two
or three women standing up and you would be setting down and there would
be three or four drinks under your belt and you would be feeling good
and you would say to yourself am I a gentleman or ain't I a gentleman.
You're damned right I am a gentleman, you would say to yourself, here,
lady, you set down, and don't let any of these here bums roust you out
of that seat.
If any of these here bums tries to roust you out of that seat I will put
a tin ear onto them.
That's the kind of a gentleman I am, lady, they would have a hell of a
time, lady, getting your seat away from you with me here.
And she seen you was a gentleman and she smiled at you and you hung onto
a strap and felt good.
But nowadays there ain't no manners, with no place to get a drink or
anything.
You are setting in the subway and a lady comes in and has nowheres to
set, and you say to yourself let some of these other guys get up and
give her a seat.
And you think a while and you say to yourself I'll bet she is a
Prohibitionist anyhow. Let her stand up. She has got to learn you can't
have any manners with the barrooms all closed and everything.
Well, that's another thing closing the barroom has done. It has took
away all the manners this town ever had.
In my next chapter I will get down to brass tacks and tell just what
those barrooms was like for the benefit of future posterity that has
never seen one.