Inside, the room was still light, though now the proprietor was beginning to put away his bottles for the night, it being past midnight. Joslin turned in at the door without any definite purpose in his mind. The proprietor looked at him inquiringly, standing at attention behind the bar. Joslin swayed slightly as he approached, and placed his last two coins upon the counter. The bar man was of the very plausible belief that his customer was already the worse for liquor.
“Sir,” said he, “that’s all the money I have. I want to rest here to-night if I may. I want to give you the dime, and I want you to let me keep this quarter.”
“I’m just closing up,” began the man, pushing back his bottles upon the shelf.
Joslin looked at him straight as he replied:
“I know, but I’m alone in this town, and I’ve no place to lay my head. I’m in trouble. Perhaps you know what trouble means?”
The man looked at him curiously, accustomed as he was to all the vagaries of alcohol.
“Have one on the house,” said he at length, and pushed the bottle once more toward his customer.
Joslin picked up the flask with trembling hand, and poured out a full drink into the glass. He raised it to his lips, but did not drink.
“Sir,” said he, “I find I do not need to drink.”
The proprietor, was disposed to be irritable. “On your way, neighbor,” said he, “This is a saloon, and we sell liquor here.”
Joslin perhaps did not fully understand all that he said. Once more he pushed both the coins back across the bar top. “Please, my friend,” said he, “I’m very tired. I come to you as to one who will aid the needy. Let me sit to-night in that chair by the little table yonder. Put the glass on the table by me. In the morning I’ll be here if the liquor in the glass has not been tasted—and then I can go on my way, as you say. If the liquor is gone, you will have had pay for it—take this larger coin—but I will not be here then.
“I’d like to sit here and read, that’s all,” he added after a while, since the other made no reply. “I have no other place to go.”
“Who are you, bo?” asked the saloon-keeper curiously. His education in human nature did not often lead him astray. He knew now this was no ordinary drunk, and no ordinary man. “What’s your line?” he asked again.