“You ought to be all locked up!” I says.
“Will you have anything open tomorrow?” ast the Missus.
“I think I can fix you then,” he says.
“What do we get for the five?” I ast him.
“Private room and we take care o’ your bathin’ suit,” says he.
“How much if you don’t take care o’ the suit?” I ast him. “My suit’s been gettin’ along fine with very little care.”
“Five dollars a week apiece,” he says, “and if you want the rooms you better take ’em, because they’re in big demand.”
By the time we’d closed this grand bargain, everybody’d moved offen the porch and down to the water, where a couple dozen o’ them went in for a swim and the rest set and watched. They was a long row o’ chairs on the beach for spectators and we was just goin’ to flop into two o’ them when another bandit come up and told us it’d cost a dime apiece per hour.
“We’re goin’ to be here two weeks,” I says. “Will you sell us two chairs?”
He wasn’t in no comical mood, so we sunk down on the sand and seen the show from there. We had plenty o’ company that preferred these kind o’ seats free to the chairs at ten cents a whack.
Besides the people that was in the water gettin’ knocked down by the waves and pretendin’ like they enjoyed it, about half o’ the gang on the sand was wearin’ bathin’ suits just to be clubby. You could tell by lookin’ at the suits that they hadn’t never been wet and wasn’t intended for no such ridic’lous purpose. I wisht I could describe ’em to you, but it’d take a female to do it right.
One little girl, either fourteen or twenty-four, had white silk slippers and sox that come pretty near up to her ankles, and from there to her knees it was just plain Nature. Northbound from her knees was a pair o’ bicycle trousers that disappeared when they come to the bottom of her Mother Hubbard. This here garment was a thing without no neck or sleeves that begin bulgin’ at the top and spread out gradual all the way down, like a croquette. To top her off, she had a jockey cap; and—believe me—I’d of played her mount acrost the board. They was plenty o’ class in the field with her, but nothin’ that approached her speed. Later on I seen her several times round the hotel, wearin’ somethin’ near the same outfit, without the jockey cap and with longer croquettes.
We set there in the sand till people begun to get up and leave. Then we trailed along back o’ them to the Breakers’ porch, where they was music to dance and stuff to inhale.
“We’ll grab a table,” I says to the Missus. “I’m dyin’ o’ thirst.”
But I was allowed to keep on dyin’.
“I can serve you somethin’ soft,” says the waiter.
“I’ll bet you can’t!” I says.
“You ain’t got no locker here?” he says.
“What do you mean—locker?” I ast him.
“It’s the locker liquor law,” he says. “We can serve you a drink if you own your own bottles.”
“I’d just as soon own a bottle,” I says. “I’ll become the proprietor of a bottle o’ beer.”
“It’ll take three or four hours to get it for you,” he says, “and you’d have to order it through the order desk. If you’re stoppin’ at one o’ the hotels and want a drink once in a w’ile, you better get busy and put in an order.”
So I had to watch the Missus put away a glass of orange juice that cost forty cents and was just the same size as they give us for breakfast free for nothin’. And, not havin’ had nothin’ to make me forget that my feet hurt, I was obliged to pay another four bits for an Afromobile to cart us back to our own boardin’ house.
“Well,” says the Missus when we got there, “it’s time to wash up and go to lunch.”
“Wash up and go to lunch, then,” I says; “but I’m goin’ to investigate this here locker liquor or liquor locker law.”
So she got her key and beat it, and I limped to the bar.
“I want a highball,” I says to the boy.
“What’s your number?” says he.
“It varies,” I says. “Sometimes I can hold twenty and sometimes four or five makes me sing.”
“I mean, have you got a locker here?” he says.
“No; but I want to get one,” says I.
“The gent over there to the desk will fix you,” says he.
So over to the desk I went and ast for a locker.
“What do you drink?” ast the gent.
“I’m from Chicago,” I says. “I drink bourbon.”
“What’s your name and room number?” he says, and I told him.
Then he ast me how often did I shave and what did I think o’ the Kaiser and what my name was before I got married, and if I had any intentions of ever running an elevator. Finally he says I was all right.
“I’ll order you some bourbon,” he says. “Anything else?”
I was goin’ to say no, but I happened to remember that the Wife generally always wants a bronix before dinner. So I had to also put in a bid for a bottle o’ gin and bottles o’ the Vermouth brothers, Tony and Pierre. It wasn’t till later that I appreciated what a grand law this here law was. When I got my drinks I paid ten cents apiece for ’em for service, besides payin’ for the bottles o’ stuff to drink. And, besides that, about every third highball or bronix I ordered, the waiter’d bring back word that I was just out of ingredients and then they’d be another delay w’ile they sent to the garage for more. If they had that law all over the country they’d soon be an end o’ drinkin’, because everybody’d get so mad they’d kill each other.
My cross-examination had took quite a long
