By this time I had learned that such symptoms indicated an inn; and while Zed led away the horses, Heaven knows where, I stepped up to the fat smoker, and asked where I could find the landlord.
And, without even asking if I wanted anything, continued puffing away at his pipe with the utmost indifference.
The fact is, that the people of this country are too thinly scattered for anything like what we call attention and civility. There is no competition amongst them. They feel that other men are more dependent upon them than they upon other men, and they are determined to make those whom they supply with anything feel that it is so. This is a good deal the case in the cities, but ten times more so in remote country places, where the solitary inn has the power of laying every traveller under contribution, or inflicting upon him the penalty of a long and inexpedient ride. I have come to this conclusion from remarking that in spots where commerce is beginning to centre, and two or three taverns have been set up side by side, the landlords, yielding to circumstances, have put on as much civility, if not obsequiousness, as any in the old world.
Nothing like competition, my dear friends. It is what bows down most men to the worship of the golden calf, but is very comfortable and convenient for travellers.
"Pray, sir, can I get any dinner here, to-day?"
"I dar say you can." Puff--puff--puff--not a word more.
"One o'clock, if the lads have come back." Puff--puff--puff.
"Can I get anything to drink? I am very thirsty."
"Just in there you'll find the whisky-bottle, on the shelf in the bar. There's water in the pitcher, I think."
I was turning away, to satisfy my thirst, when my fat friend hallooed after me--
"Hie! Will you jist hand me that newspaper off the bench."
With a smile I could not repress, I did what he required, observing, in somewhat of the country language,--
"You seem somewhat troubled about the limbs, Mr. Gorbel."
"No, not a bit," said he; "my limbs is as strong as ever. It's what's above 'em is the trouble; they have got too much to carry. It's all come on in these cussed last three years, owing to the dry weather and the weevil, I think."
I walked away, rather inclined to conclude it was the drought of his own palate, rather than that of the weather, which had brought him into that condition; and, with such an example before my eyes, contented myself with the cold water, without troubling the whisky.