"Let them ask for it," said the proprietor gruffly. "Do you want to insult
a man?"
On Saturday the place was filled all day with beer-drinking farmers, and
at odd hours on other days men came in, whimpering and begging drinks.
When alone in the place, Sam looked at the trembling fingers of these men
and put the bottle before them, saying, "Drink all you want of the stuff."
When the proprietor was in, the men who begged drinks stood a moment by
the stove and then went out thrusting their hands into their coat pockets
and looking at the floor.
"Bar flies," the proprietor explained laconically.
The whiskey was horrible. The proprietor mixed it himself and put it into
stone jars that stood under the bar, pouring it out of these into bottles
as they became empty. He kept on display in glass cases bottles of well
known brands of whiskey, but when a man came in and asked for one of these
brands Sam handed him a bottle bearing that label from beneath the bar, a
bottle previously filled by Al from the jugs of his own mixture. As Al
sold no mixed drinks Sam was compelled to know nothing the bartender's art
and stood all day handing out Al's poisonous stuff and the foaming glasses
of beer the workingmen drank in the evening.
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