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At the corner there was a sort of tap-room, which sailors and the lower orders frequented at night, and she had two girls whose special duty it was to wait on them with the assistance of Frederic, a short, light-haired, beardless fellow, as strong as a horse. They set the half bottles of wine and the jugs of beer on the shaky marble tables before the customers, and then urged the men to drink.
Poor gentlefolks, they must be unked dull, yonder!" "If the Yorkists come hither, which we shall soon know by the scouts, we must shift Sir John and the damsel to the back of the house, over thy tap-room." "Manage it as thou wilt, Meg; but thou seest they keep quiet and snug. Ho, ho, ho! that tall tymbestere is supple enough to make an owl hold his sides with laughing.
Alaric Hobbs then descended to the tap-room and instructed the pretty barmaid in the manufacture of his own favorite "cocktail," an American drink of surpassing fierceness and "innate power," which had once caused "Bald-headed Wolf," a Kiowa chieftain, to slay his favorite squaw, scalp a peace commissioner, and chase a fat army paymaster till he died of fright in his ambulance, after Alaric Hobbes had incautiously left a bottle of this "red-eye" mixture with his aboriginal host on one of the "exploring tours."
As George was resuming his chair at the table in the tap-room, three roystering, half-tipsy fellows, wearing the uniform of the King's Guard, entered, flung themselves into chairs at the long table and called loudly for brandy. Hamilton did not know any of them, though he knew by their uniforms and swords that they were in the king's service.
While the wedding feast was going on lower down in the village, a certain number of men who liked stronger fare than what is usually provided at a "maiden's farewell" dance, as well as those who had had no claim to be invited, strolled into the tap-room for a draught of silvorium, a gossip with the Jewess, or a game of tarok if any were going. Ignácz Goldstein himself was fond of a game.
Well, one cold, stormy winter's night, when the wind was howling like ten thousand devils around the house, I was seated in my comfortable tap-room, making myself extremely happy over a reeking jarum of hot rum punch.
Many an exclamation of surprise and pleasure was heard directly after their entrance into the tap-room, and amid the confusion of voices, the name of Hans Eitelfritz fell more than once upon Ulrich's ear.
"Let any Saxon," said I, "who is fond of fighting and wishes for a bloody nose go in there." Coming to the small village about a mile from Rhiwabon, I felt thirsty, and seeing a public-house, in which all seemed to be quiet, I went in. A thick-set man with a pipe in his mouth sat in the tap-room, and also a woman. "Where is the landlord?" said I. "I am the landlord," said the man, huskily.
"Then come on," said Williams, taking off his coat, "and I'll take you both: one man is worth two canting hypocrites, any day." But no one had bolted the door, and, to the surprise of all, Mr. Compton stood before them. "What is this?" he said; "young men in my office talking of fighting, as if it were the tap-room of a public house? George Weston! I did not think this of you."
While we were haggling about an eighteen-penny clasp knife, the door of the tap-room opened, and there entered an old man, clothed in rags, with a wallet at his back and a long piked stick in his hand; who, uncovering his head, knelt down upon the floor, and began to pray and cross himself with surprising volubility.