“Saturday night is to howl,” Herman formulated as if it had come from Longfellow. “And lucky us, here we are, south of the moon, hah?”
He shut me down with such a fond grin—for me, for the decorated saloon so much like the Schooner, for the company of our hobo pals—that I did not have the heart to tear him away. There are times when mercy cancels anything else.
? ? ?
AS HE AND POOCH lapsed back into their mute pleasure of imbibing, I tried to clear my head by seeing what else Saturday night in the Watering Hole had to offer, and it was then that I began to catch the drift of the Jersey Mosquito’s earnest jawboning of the Tumbling T boss hobo.
“Haven’t seen you since we was in that boxcar on the Ma and Pa”—the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad in hobo nomenclature—“and that Baltimore yard bull came callin’ with a billy club in one hand and handcuffs in the other. I swear, Deac, never saw a man bail out the other side of a boxcar as fast as you. Left me to deal with that railroad dick by my lonesome, you sonofagun.”
“Survival of the fastest,” Deacon stated his philosophy smugly. The two of them batted boasts and put-downs back and forth like that until Skeeter sprung the trap I realized he had been baiting all along.
“I’m telling ye, Deacon, I know you think you’re a helluva drinkin’ man. But we got a fella who puts you to shame when it comes to lickin’ a glass. Our man here can take the least leetle sip of anythin’ captured in a bottle and tell you just exactly what it is.”
“Skeets, you’re so full of it your eyes are turning brown,” Deacon dismissed that boast with a laugh.
“By the grace of whatever ain’t unholy, I swear it’s true, Deac,” Skeeter persisted. “Seen him do it with my own two eyes.” Sensing a chance to hold forth, Peerless had moved in and backed that with “I’m a witness to that my own self. Damnedest stunt since Jesus turned ditchwater into muscatel.”
His interest piqued now in spite of himself, the Tumbling T haymaker peered along the bar at our crew carrying on in Saturday night fashion. “Where’s this miracle of nature you’re bragging up?”
“Sittin’ right there, answerin’ to the name of One Eye.” Skeeter pointed a skeletal finger toward Herman.
Deacon followed that up with a dubious look, then the even more skeptical inquiry to Herman. “So you’re this hipper-dipper sipper who can identify every beer this side of horse piss, huh?”
Herman drew himself up with pride. “Is true.”
“Tell ye what we’re gonna do, Deac,” Skeeter followed right on the heels of that, “if you got any guts left in that stewpot belly of yours. We’ll bet that our fella here can have a swig of any of these”—the sweep of his arm indicated the line of beer spigots half the length of the bar—“let’s say, oh, half a dozen just to make it sporting, and tell you like that”—a snap of his fingers like a starter’s gun going off—“whatevery by God one is, without him knowing aforehand.”
Deacon took another look at Herman, who gave him back a vague horsy grin and drained his glass as if in challenge, and it all of a sudden occurred to me just how many glasses he’d emptied. “Hey, though, he’s already had—” I tried to warn Skeeter, but Deacon overrode me with the shrewd conclusion, “Beer gets to be plain old beer the more you drink of it. What do you think, boys? Shall we call this windjammer’s bluff?”
That brought cries of “Hell, yeah!” and “I’m in!” from the Tumbling T crew.
“This suit you okay?” Highpockets shouldered in to make sure with Herman.
“Ja, betsa bootsies,” said Herman with a wink at me, which I found alarmingly woozy. “Suits me to a T Tumbler!” he ambitiously tried a joke.
“Babs, set him up six of the Montana brews, shot glasses only,” Deacon directed. “We don’t want him swilling the stuff long enough to get familiar with it. The Muskeeter here claims he only needs a first swig anyway.”
“STOP WITH EVERYTHING!”