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His steps turned naturally upwards towards the overhanging castle where he was sure of a breeze and plenty of shade; and as he passed the famous old "Wirthshaus zum faulen Pelz" on the ascent, he turned in and took a drink of the cool clear ale and a pretzel, an operation termed in Germany the "Frühschoppen," or "early glass," and as universal a practice as the early tea in the tropics before the sun is up, or the "vermouth" of the Italian before the evening meal.
Wet as he was, and with strips of seaweed clinging to him, he walked across to my cafe, and, sitting down at a table outside, asked for cherry brandy, a liqueur which I keep, but is seldom demanded. Then the monster, with great politeness, invited me to partake of a vermouth before my dinner, and we fell into conversation.
Babbitt said he was under foot, and Matilda and the maid hired for the evening brushed by him, elbowed him, shrieked "Pleasopn door," as they tottered through with trays, but in this high moment he ignored them. Besides the new bottle of gin, his cellar consisted of one half-bottle of Bourbon whisky, a quarter of a bottle of Italian vermouth, and approximately one hundred drops of orange bitters.
It was a gloomy place; a road planted with clusters of broom, and broken up into muddy ruts, traversing the leprous fields of the neighborhood; on the border stood an abandoned tavern, a tavern with arbors, where the soldiers had established their post. They had fallen back here a few days before; the grape-shot had broken down some of the young trees, and all of them bore upon their bark the white scars of bullet wounds. As for the house, its appearance made one shudder; the roof had been torn by a shell, and the walls seemed whitewashed with blood. The torn and shattered arbors under their network of twigs, the rolling of an upset cask, the high swing whose wet rope groaned in the damp wind, and the inscriptions over the door, furrowed by bullets; "Cabinets de societé Absinthe Vermouth Vin
He rose and moved among the closely set chairs and tables to the pavement. The sightless stare of light-blanched spectacles met his eyes. A gentlemanly-looking lady in short skirts stood awaiting him. "How are you?" she said. "Yes, I know you didn't see me, but I thought you'd like to." "I do like to, indeed. May I walk with you or " he glanced back at the table where his Vermouth stood untasted.
I've got the rest of it." "Got the rest of it, eh? Nasty mess you've got, whatever it is, I'll be bound. What a nice mob you press fellows are wholesale scavengers!" "That's all right. This vermouth is good enough. Well, will you answer my question?" "Possibly, if it's not personal. But Lord knows where your insolence may run! You may ask if I'll introduce you to a decent London club!"
"A sailor," said an American in a white apron, who leaned out of the door. "Drank whiskey and vermouth and talked like a squarehead." "Greek he was," said a man with the appearance of a mariner.
"It will need some thought," Kit answered cautiously, since he had grounds for believing the other imagined he was Adam's clerk. Olsen ordered some vermouth, and then remarked in a meaning tone: "I don't have to be careful about my drinks. There's an advantage in taking the popular side." "Are you sure yours is the popular side?"
Presently they were seated in Olga's music-room, with a bottle of vermouth between them. "Now drink fair, Georgie," she said, "and as you drink tell me all about the young people's emotional history." "Atkinson and Elizabeth?" asked Georgie. "No, my dear; Colonel Boucher and Mrs Weston. They have an emotional history. I am sure you all thought they were going to marry each other once.
But when they had been passed from hand to hand, accompanied by the customary exclamations of envy and admiration, back they went into the royal pocket again. "And to think," one of the party remarked afterward, "that we wasted two bottles of perfectly good gin and a bottle of vermouth on him!"
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