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How the diamonds sparkled on her little hands I How the men in the bar-room clapped, swearing she was a good one, and must have another drink. Someone gave an order, and the bartender handed out a small tray upon which stood slender-necked amber-colored glasses filled to the brim.
The melodrama shows us how the young millionaire wastes his nights in a dissipated life, and when he drinks his blasphemous toast at a champagne feast with shameless women, we suddenly see on the screen the vision of twenty years later when the bartender of a most miserable saloon pushes the penniless tramp out into the gutter.
Says the bartender: "That fellow had a good business once. Doesn't look it, does he? Jim over there used to work for him. But he couldn't let it alone." The "it" mentioned is whiskey. Outside in the cold that man, who couldn't let it alone, is shuffling his way against the bitter wind. And even in his poor, sodden brain reform and wisdom are striving to be heard.
Once, when we ran out of liquid refreshments while on the hunt, we rode thirty miles to a saloon, only to find it closed. Lord Flynn inquired the price of the place, found it to be $500 and bought it. When we left, after having had all we needed to drink, he gave it house, bar, stock, and all to George Dillard, who had come along with the party as a sort of official bartender.
Rack told him the name of the bartender, and Racey nodded quite as if Rack were facing him and could see everything he did. "Then that's all right," whispered Racey. "I know that feller. He's a friend of Mike Flynn's. He won't do anythin' hostyle. Let's go right in. Open the door. G'on, damn yore soul, or I'll blow you apart!"
"If anybody gets to acting uneasylike it'll be the signal for me to start shootin' understand?" came the holdup's menacing voice as he moved around behind the bar. "Open both cash drawers," he ordered the servitor in the white apron. He covered the bartender with one gun while he kept the other pointed in the direction of the men standing in line.
The girl suddenly burst into a storm of sobs, and, turning, reeled back into the inner room. "You see!" the bartender observed, confidentially, as the door swung shut behind her. "She thinks he's gone off with another skirt; that's the way with women! I knew Pad had given him the office, though. I got it straight. You're right about Pad bein' up in the air.
But the drinks are on me." So willy-nilly I was brought to the bar, where the line of men already loafing there made space. "Straight goods and the best you've got," my self-appointed pilot blared. "None o' your agency whiskey, either. What's yourn?" he asked of me. "The same as yours, sir," I bravely replied. With never a word the bartender shoved bottle and glasses to us.
Other men looked drawn, haggard, waiting as if expecting a thunderbolt. Once in my roving gaze I caught Blandy's glinty eye on me. I didn't like the gleam. I said to myself I'd watch him if I had to do it out of the back of my head. Blandy, by the way, is was I should say, the Hope So bartender." I stopped to clear my throat and get my breath. "Was," whispered Sally. She quivered with excitement.
Both men spoke in the dead, restrained tones that go with their callings. "What's her name?" "Chester, I think. Why? Look good to you, Kid?" Although the other neither spoke nor made sign, the bartender construed his silence as acquiescence and continued, with a conscious glance at his own reflection while he adjusted his diamond scarf-pin: "Well, she can have ME! I've got it fixed to meet her."
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