Читать книгу Frontier Humor in Verse, Prose and Picture - Палмер Кокс - Страница 11

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To-day, while taking dinner in an eating-house in a Western town, I witnessed an amusing incident. It appears the proprietor had often been imposed upon by bummers who would walk boldly into the dining-room, and after stowing away a supply of victuals that would fill an ordinary carpet sack, would shuffle up to the counter, and in an undertone of voice inform the person there officiating that they were unfortunately “dead broke.” Of course the law doesn’t allow any ripping to be done on such occasions, other than swearing. Then the well-filled rascals would walk off picking their teeth with the utmost composure; except in extreme cases when the out-going party would be assisted over the threshold by an uprising boot. But even kicks would not bring the coin into the till, or bring back upon the table the vanished edibles, so this treatment was seldom resorted to. Finally, the proprietor bought a large syringe, and placing it in a drawer in the dining-room, bided his time.

It happened while I was sitting at the table an individual, whose cheek the proprietor had reason to believe far exceeded his checks, entered the room and sat down directly in front of me. A plate of hot bean soup sat invitingly before him, from which the savory steam rose up in clouds, and not only filled the nostrils of the hungry man with delicious and enticing odors, but served to whet the hungry edge of appetite.

“PAY IN ADVANCE, SIR.”

Lifting a large pewter spoon that lay beside the plate, he was about to introduce it to the hot decoction before him. Already the limber hinges of his jaw began to relax, preparatory to admitting the well-filled spoon. His attention was suddenly arrested by the proprietor, who, with one hand behind him and the other laid upon the spoon-arm of the would-be eater, demanded the price of the dinner before he went any further. The man, it seems, was not a member of that class of individuals which the hotel keeper thought him. He was justly indignant, therefore, at the demand, and sharply informed mine host that “he guessed after he had eaten his dinner would be time enough to pay for it.” But the oft-swindled proprietor thought differently. The man had scarcely got the words out of his mouth before “mine host” produced a syringe, large as the trunk of a small-sized elephant, and slapping the nozzle of it into the soup, ran it circling around the plate, and with one long, slobbering draught, like that of a horse drinking through his bits, the soup plate was left lying before the hungry man, as empty as his own stomach.

The astonished individual looked first at his plate, on which not even a bean was left, then at the dripping, steaming muzzle of the syringe, and lastly at the landlord, who stood with a look of triumph spreading over his face, silently waiting for the man to either come down with the coin or leave the table.

Though not liking that summary way of treating a person, the man was either too hungry or too limited in time to go further for a meal, so he fished out of his pocket the change and handed it to the proprietor. The latter thereupon discharged the contents of the syringe into the soup plate again, and walked away, leaving the customer to proceed with his dinner.