The meanest of all occupations, he continued, is that which requires a man to dole out whiskey at three cents a glass when he knows perhaps a whole family is suffering for the bread which should have been bought with the coppers. Lane was idly checking the primer. Suddenly he leaned forward, roughly clattering the pistol to the desktop. Say, he exclaimed. That d make a good temperance item.
Man s most miserable occupation.
He reached for his pen. Henry Frost started for the door. The scratching of his pen on paper drowned out Lane s soft answer. Like the barkeep, Henry, a man s got to live. Only a few days later, with the brass pistol pulling at the skirt pocket of his overcoat, Sam l Lane called at the Hall Hotel, on business with the landlord s brother.