Versus Hash
The snake reporter of The Rolling Stone was wandering up the avenue last night on his way home from the Y.M.C.A. rooms when he was approached by a , hungry-looking man with wild eyes and hair. He the reporter in a hollow, weak voice.
“Can you tell me, Sir, where I can find in this town a family of scrubs?”
“I don’t understand exactly.”
“Let me tell you how it is,” said the stranger, inserting his in the reporter’s buttonhole and badly damaging his . “I am a representative from Soapstone County, and I and my family are houseless, homeless, and shelterless. We have not tasted food for over a week. I brought my family with me, as I have and could not get around much with the boys. Some days ago I started out to find a boarding house, as I cannot afford to put up at a hotel. I found a nice -looking place, that suited me, and went in and asked for the . A very lady with a Roman nose came in the room. She had one hand laid across her stom—across her waist, and the other held a . I told her I wanted board for myself and family, and she condescended to take us. I asked for her terms, and she said $300 per week.
“I had two dollars in my pocket and I gave her that for a fine teapot that I broke when I fell over the table when she spoke.
“ ‘You appear surprised,’ says she. ‘You will please remembah that I am the widow of Governor Riddle of Georgiah; my family is very highly connected; I give you board as a favah; I nevah considah money any equivalent for the advantage of my society, I—’
“Well, I got out of there, and I went to some other places. The next lady was a cousin of General Mahone of Virginia, and wanted four dollars an hour for a back room with a pink motto and a Burnet granite bed in it. The next one was an aunt of Davy Crockett, and asked eight dollars a day for a room furnished in imitation of the Alamo, with prunes for breakfast and one hour’s conversation with her for dinner. Another one said she was a descendant of Benedict Arnold on her father’s side and Captain Kidd on the other.
“She took more after Captain Kidd.
“She only had one meal and prayers a day, and counted her society worth $100 a week.
“I found nine widows of Supreme Judges, twelve relicts of Governors and Generals, and twenty-two ruins left by various happy Colonels, Professors, and Majors, who valued their aristocratic worth from $90 to $900 per week, with weak-kneed hash and dried apples on the side. I admire people of fine descent, but my stomach yearns for pork and beans instead of culture. Am I not right?”
“Your words,” said the reporter, “convince me that you have uttered what you have said.”
“Thanks. You see how it is. I am not wealthy; I have only my per diem and my perquisites, and I cannot afford to pay for high lineage and moldy ancestors. A little corned beef goes further with me than a coronet, and when I am cold a coat of arms does not warm me.”
“I greatly fear,” said the reporter, with a playful hiccup, “that you have run against a high-toned town. Most all the first-class boarding houses here are run by ladies of the old Southern families, the very first in the land.”
“I am now desperate,” said the Representative, as he chewed a tack awhile, thinking it was a clove. “I want to find a boarding house where the proprietress was an orphan found in a livery stable, whose father was a dago from East Austin, and whose grandfather was never placed on the map. I want a scrubby, ornery, low-down, snuff-dipping, back-woodsy, piebald gang, who never heard of finger bowls or Ward McAllister, but who can get up a mess of hot cornbread and Irish stew at regular market quotations.
“Is there such a place in Austin?”
The snake reporter sadly shook his head. “I do not know,” he said, “but I will shake you for the beer.”
Ten minutes later the slate in the Blue Ruin saloon bore two additional characters: 10.