Ye jes' pour it out and drink it, and there's the end of it."
"Not always," I remarked.
"Ye're right there," said he, with a smile. "A good deal depends on how
much ye pour." He turned away, but stopped suddenly. "Look here," said
he; "if ye say so, I'll make ye a cup of coffee. I've got an alcohol
lamp up there that I can boil water with in no time. I'm out of alcohol,
but, if you'll pay for it, I'll fill the lamp with whiskey; that'll burn
just as well."
I willingly agreed to his proposition, and the man immediately
disappeared into the back part of the house.
I sat and looked about the little bar-room, in which there was
absolutely nothing of the quaint interest which one associates with a
country inn. It was a bare, cold, hard, sandy, dirty room; its air
tainted with the stale odors of whiskey, sugar, and wood still wet from
its morning mopping. In less than fifteen minutes the man placed before
me a cup of coffee and some soda biscuit. The coffee was not very good,
but it was hot, and when I had finished it I felt like another man.
"There now," cried the bar-keeper, looking at me with great
satisfaction, "don't that take the dampness out of ye? I tell ye there's
no such stiffener in the airly mornin' as whiskey; and if ye don't use
it in one way, ye can in another.
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