CHAPTER XLVIII.

SALOON BIRDS.

As the reader has been kept for some time in the “lower levels,” and amid the roar of the machinery of the mills, I shall now give a few chapters illustrative of life in Virginia City, and along the Comstock lode.

In Virginia City are found many odd, curious, and reckless characters. It would be strange, indeed, if such were not the case, in a city having a population of over twenty thousand souls, composed of adventurers from every land, all attracted thither by the great richness of the mines and the abundance of money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid out on the first of every month to the miners and the workmen employed in the many mills, there have been attracted to the Comstock range hundreds of gamblers of all grades, and men of all kinds who live by their wits. There is always a small army of men who haunt the saloons and gambling rooms, and by begging a good deal and stealing a little, and playing all manner of tricks and dodges, manage to pick up a precarious subsistence. There are in Virginia City about one hundred saloons, all of which have their customers. The majority of these saloons are what are called “bit houses;” that is, drinks of all kinds and cigars are one bit—twelve and one-half cents. The dime, however, passes as a “bit” in all of these houses.

The money in circulation is wholly gold and silver coin, and the smallest coin in use is the bit, ten-cent piece—sometimes spoken of as a “short bit,” as not being twelve and one-half cents, the “long bit.” There being no smaller change in use than the dime, the bit passes for the half of twenty-five cents. Thus, whenever a customer throws down a quarter of a dollar in payment for a drink or a cigar, he gets back a dime, and so has paid fifteen cents for his “nip” or smoke. The new twenty-cent pieces, of which Senator Jones, of Nevada, is the father, will, however, cure this little ill. In the “two-bit,” or twenty-five cent saloons, everything is twenty-five cents, even the same drinks that are sold in the bit houses for ten cents; as lager beer, soda water, lemonade, cider, and the like.

There is really but one hotel—kept after the plan of hotels in other places—in Virginia City. The people of the town eat at restaurants and have their rooms at lodging-houses. It is on the European plan, except that a restaurant is seldom found in the same building as a lodging-house. Those who live in lodging-houses patronize that restaurant which best suits them. Restaurants and lodging-houses are, therefore, even more numerous in the town than saloons.

The grand army of men who live by their wits are always at war with the restaurant keepers. Of late, however, the latter have formed an association for their mutual protection, and furnish each other lists of all swindling customers, which makes it no easy matter for one of the “dead beats” to get a “square meal,” unless he first “puts up” his coin. These fellows cannot now rove from house to house as in former times.

Some years ago a restaurant keeper had a number of these customers, who were eating him out of house and home. One day he seriously remonstrated with one of his patrons. He told him that unless he and others like him paid up, the house must close.

Said the restaurant man: “Here, now, it has been two weeks since I paid my meat bill. If I don’t pay up this week the butcher will shut down on me, and I can get no more meat. Don’t you see, I shall be obliged to close my house!”

“O, no!” said the customer, “don’t close your house. Keep her open. We’ll all stay by you. If you can’t get any meat, we’ll play you a string on vegetables!”

Even some such customers as pay are a terror to the restaurant keeper. When the check-guerrilla is eating his semi-weekly square meal, the landlord paces the room wringing his hands—eyes red, face flushed, brows corrugated, general aspect venomous. In his walk—as steak after steak disappears—he eyes his customer in a malignant, yet helpless manner. In case of fifteen or twenty such customers arriving in one day, the restaurant keeper generally goes out into his back yard and cuts his throat.

Pat Murphy had the name of being the biggest eater on the Comstock range. He was a very good sort of man, and tried his best not to make his appetite conspicuous, but it was a thing that could not be concealed. In order not to be too hard on any one man, Murphy was in the habit of changing his boarding place quite frequently. On one occasion a new restaurant was opened, and nearly every morning the patrons of the place would ask the landlord if Pat Murphy had not yet come to board with him. The landlord would say that he had seen no man of that name. Finding that the “sports” who were boarding with him continued daily to ask if he had yet seen Murphy, the landlord began to feel that he should like to know something about him. He asked what kind of man Murphy was, and how he would be able to recognize him in case he should come to the restaurant.

“Never mind about how he looks,” said the sports, “you will know him when he comes.”

One morning a tall, gaunt, middle-aged man came edging into the restaurant, and meekly took a seat. The landlord rather liked the appearance of the new customer, and at once went to take his order.

“Landlord,” said the man, “let me have a porther-house steak and onions, some liver and bacon on the side, six fried eggs, a bit of ham, a Jarman pancake, some fried pertaties, a cup of coffee, and a couple of doughnuts, and—if ye have them—a couple of waffles.” When the sports came in to breakfast, the landlord said: “He has been here—I’ve seen Murphy, the man who eats.”

Many of the emigrants from the older states arrive in Washoe with exaggerated notions and with eyes and ears open for strange things of all kinds. Being well aware of this, a Comstocker who dropped in at a chop-house where about a dozen newcomers had just settled in a flock, at two or three adjoining tables, concluded to have some fun with them. Seating himself near them, the Comstocker roared: “Waiter, how long does a man have to sit here before you come to take his order?”

“All right, sir!” said the alert waiter, who was well acquainted with the customer, and saw that he was up to some kind of mischief. “All right! What will you have, sir?”

The emigrants all turned to take a look at the man of stentorian voice, who spoke so authoritatively.

Straightening himself up, and speaking even louder than before, the Comstocker cried: “Give me a baked horned toad, two broiled lizards on toast, with tarantula sauce—stewed rattlesnake and poached scorpions on the side!”

Without the slightest hesitation or the least sign of astonishment, the waiter called out to the Chinese cooks in the kitchen: “Baked horned toad; two briled lizards on toast, tarantula sauce; stewed rattlesnake and poached scorpions. Very nice and well done, for Mr. Terry!”

There was then a great buzzing among the emigrants as they laid their heads together, and many curious side glances were shot at that most incorrigible of jokers, Bill Terry. Even after Bill’s breakfast had been placed before him—his real order having been given on the sly—the emigrants were unable to make out what he was eating, though they nearly twisted their necks out of joint with glancing over their shoulders at his table.

The white sage which grows in great abundance throughout Nevada, is not only useful as a food for cattle, but from it has been manufactured a hair restorative—a wash for making hair grow on bald heads. One day Bill Terry happened to be seated opposite a stranger at a table in a restaurant, when the stranger—who was a side-whiskered, lisping man who showed a good deal of the dandy in his dress—attracted the attention of “William” by opening a conversation as follows:—

STRANGER.—“Deah me! this is disgusting! (Holding up his knife and gazing fixedly at its point.) This is either the second or the third hair that I have found in this buttah!”

BILL TERRY—“You’ve not been here long, I judge?”

STRANGER—“No sir; I arrived here yesterday morning.”

BILL TERRY—“I thought so, otherwise you would not complain of hairs in the butter.”

STRANGER—“Not complain of hairs in the butter? You suppwise me, sir! How could I do otherwise?”

BILL TERRY—“Those hairs, sir, are just as natural to Washoe butter as butter is a natural product of milk. They are just as good and just as clean as the butter.”

STRANGER—“Impossible!”

BILL TERRY—“Not at all, sir. All our butter comes from the great valley of our State where flourishes that most nutritious and truly wonderful plant, the white sage. On this white sage our cattle feed and fatten. The plant has many virtues. It is of an oleaginous nature and is good in lung diseases, and from it is also manufactured a most wonderful and very popular hair restorative.”

STRANGER—“Ah, yes; I’ve heard something of the kind.”

BILL TERRY—“Well, then, sir, in a country where all the cows feed on the white sage, do you think it likely that the butter will be bald-headed.”

Promontory is a new place out on the Central Pacific Railroad. Out there they have no “Hotel and Restaurant-keepers’ Mutual Protection Association,” as they have in Virginia City. The place is too small and scattering for the advanced ideas that rule in the more metropolitan towns. A Comstocker went out to Promontory to prospect and look around for a time. He stopped at the principal hotel, which stood at the edge of the town. Our Comstocker liked the looks of things. The landlord seemed a very agreeable and friendly sort of man, and he thought he would stop and board with him a while.

When dinner was ready the landlord took a double-barrelled shot-gun from behind the bar, and, stepping out in front of his house, fired off one of the barrels.

The Comstocker, who had followed him to the door to see what was up, said to him: “What did you do that for?”

“To call my boarders to dinner,” said the landlord.

“I see,” said the Comstocker, “but why don’t you fire off both barrels?”

“Well,” said the landlord, “you see I keep the other to collect with.”

Having but a few “short bits” in his pocket our Comstocker, after getting his dinner, concluded to shoulder his carpet-bag and jog along. Speaking of short bits: A “hoodlum” went into a cigar store in Virginia City one day, and after getting a “bit” cigar, laid a dime on the counter and picked up a twenty-five cent piece which he saw lying there, saying as he walked off: “Just the change!”

The astonished shop-keeper gazed at the lone bit, then at his box of cigars, and then in the direction taken by the young sharper. At last he said: “Vell, now, how dat vas? Dat vas make der right schange, sure; but it look to me like it vas make em de wrong vay somehow. Vell, de next time what dare comes a bargain like dese, I make der schange mineselfs. Ven effery fool what come to der store make schange, it soon schpiles der piziness!”

The saloon-keepers as well as the keepers of restaurants have some very amiable gentlemen to deal with occasionally, but more frequently such as are “on the beat.”

One evening a tall wild-looking fellow rushed into a first-class saloon apparently in a terrible state of excitement. Throwing his hat on the counter he said to the bar-keeper: “There’ll be the biggest row here in about a minute that ever you saw! Give me a drink quick!”

The bar-keeper set out the bottle, and while the fellow was helping himself, looked under the bar to see that his six-shooter was all right and his club handy.

Leaving his hat on the bar, the fellow ran to the door, looked out, then rushed back and said: “Yes; in less than half a minute there’ll be a devil of a time here! Give me another drink, quick!” And seizing the bottle he helped himself to another rousing horn. He then took up his hat and was coolly marching away, when the bar-keeper called after him: “See here you fellow there! What’s all this about a row? Do you know you haven’t paid me for those drinks!”

“There you go!” said the fellow.

“Well, and there you don’t go until you pay for your drinks. Come back here or I’ll give you a taste of my club!”

“There you go again! Didn’t I say there’d be a fearful row here in about a minute? I knew it; and there you go!”

The bar-keeper now saw the point and said: “Look here, you can come back here and take another drink if you like, but I wish it distinctly understood, my good fellow, that this is to be the last “row” you ever raise in this house!”

A man one day sauntered into a two-bit saloon and called for a drink of whiskey. The proprietor of the place was behind the bar and set out the Bourbon bottle. When the man had drank he threw a ten-cent piece on the counter and started off.

“This is a two-bit house, sir,” said the proprietor, in a tone which showed that he felt some pride in the establishment.

“Ah!” said the customer. “Two-bit house, eh? Well, I thought so when I first came in, but after I had tasted your whiskey I concluded it was a bit house.”

Some of the customers of the saloon-keepers are not only fellows of infinite jest, but are also men of such an agreeable disposition that it is pleasant to have them around.

“Do you know Mr. Popper?” asked a saloon-keeper of one of his customers.

“I’ve heard of him,” said the customer, “but I don’t know that I ever met him.”

“No;” said the saloon man. “Well, you ought to make his acquaintance. He’s a nice agreeable gentleman. I never saw him until night before last when he came in here about 12 o’clock and took a drink. He is a man who makes himself at home with you at once. Why he had hardly been in here five minutes before he drew out his six-shooter and began shooting holes through the pictures, the lamp, and other little notions about the place, just as familiarly as though he and I had been boys together. Nothing cold and distant about him! He’s a charming fellow!—charming!”

There is nothing at which these agreeable gentlemen are more likely to take a shot, than a large and costly mirror. A mirror is generally the first thing that attracts their attention when they are inclined to be sociable and good-natured, though a lamp, suspended in the middle of a room, very frequently draws their first fire. Sometimes two or three marksmen take a hand in the sport. Then it’s right jolly.

Probably as preparatory to a more public performance, half a dozen men went one night to a pistol gallery to practice. To snuff a candle with a pistol or rifle has always been a great feat among crack shots. These men were not only going to snuff the candle, but each man in turn was to hold the candle while the other snuffed it. At the first fire the man who held the candle got a bullet through his left hand. Although the wound was of a very painful character, he insisted on having his shot. He got it, and put a bullet through his friend’s arm just below the elbow. After this the party did not feel that enthusiasm for candle-snuffing which previously animated their bosoms. They concluded that they were not candle-snuffers.

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