Roscommon spent
more time behind his bar than his grocer's counter. Add to this the fact
that a long shed-like extension or wing bore the legend, "Cosmopolitan
Hotel, Board or Lodging by the Day or Week. M. Roscommon," and you
got an idea of the variety of the proprietor's functions. The "hotel,"
however, was more directly under the charge of Mrs. Roscommon, a lady of
thirty years, strong, truculent, and good-hearted.
Mr. Roscommon had early adopted the theory that most of his customers
were insane, and were to be alternately bullied or placated, as the case
might be. Nothing that occurred, no extravagance of speech nor act,
ever ruffled his equilibrium, which was as dogged and stubborn as it was
outwardly calm. When not serving liquor, or in the interval while it was
being drank, he was always wiping his counter with an exceedingly dirty
towel,--or indeed anything that came handy. Miners, noticing this
purely perfunctory habit, occasionally supplied him slily with articles
inconsistent with their service,--fragments of their shirts and
underclothing, flour sacking, tow, and once with a flannel petticoat
of his wife's, stolen from the line in the back-yard.
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