Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1878-01-20
HE WAS

A long, gaunt looking fellow, SO thin,
that, in the words of George Davis, she
could stand out in a shower and dodge
the rain drops" approached a we'll
known county official yesterday, and
begged for the w~herewithal to procure
a meal. He found a man that over
flowed with the milk of human kind
ness, and was about to be gratified with
the necessary half-dollar. when the
donor happened to remember that it
was soup time at the Ell Dorado, and
an idea striking him, he refrained, and
commenced questioning him.
"Look here, you spermaceti duck,
how hungry are your"
The fellow heaved a sigh, and an
swered that not a mouthful had passed
his lips for fortv-eight hours, and that
in his present famished condition he
could bankrupt any ordinary eating
establishment.
"All right, my friend; you go into
that saloon, and stay there until l work
up q little game; and il you follow
orders, l will fill you up if it takes a
months salary, damn yOu."
The man entered, followed by his
patron, and they arrived just as the
porter came in with a tureen full of
luscious oyster soup, steaming hot, and
prepared for the purpose of gratifying
the epicurean tastes of the patrons of
the house. Our official friend asked
his companion to join him in a glass of
beer, and then wendell his way to the
lunch stand, and ladled out two plates
OF soup. The hungry man set to work
on his portion with the eagerness of a
famished wolf, and in al inconceivably
short time had swallowed it.
Have %another?" asked Rufus.
The man nodded; his mouth was too
full of crackers to speak. Rufus filled
the fellow had swallowed seventeen
tom in a vain endeavor to replenish it
once more.
The proprietor had In the meanwhile
become somewhat interested in the
proceedings. He watched the disap-
pearance Of the soup, and as plateful
after plateful followed each other into
the mans eapacious nav, his indigna-
ton became mere intense. He did not
want to insult Rufe's friend, for the
latter was too good a customer, but
visions of his patrons, who daily
dropped in to eat a bite and spend half
a dollar, kept floating before him, and
he saw plainly that there was going to
be a stringency in the soup line that
day. A sum in mental arithmetic also
kept troubling him, and it soon run in
this wise: As the profit on two glasses
of beer is to two dollars worth of oys
ters and a gallon of milk, saying moth
ing of trouble and prospective profit
on the regular frequenters, so / am
eternally and everlastingly bilked by
this long, lean, lank son of a female
canine. 1t was too much. He threw
his policy to the winds, and broke
forth in the following strain: "You
- ID hungry hound, how the h
do you suppose | can support a fami-
ly, pay rent and furnish grub to your
kind? Do you think / steal the mate
rial to swell your belly with? Get out
of of here, you - ID thief, or /
will beat you to death with the tureen,
and use it for a head-board over your
grave" There was fire in Jim's eye,
and the man retreated, followed by
Rufus, who tool him down 10 Fiske's
restaurant and paid a weeks board in
advance for him. His next care was
to circulate the story, and for three
hours there was a constant stream of
customers at the Ell Dorado hunting
for soup, and making constant inquir-
les why the supply had given out.
Every time the question was asked
there was an explosion of wrath, and
before night Jim's profanity had
ripped off the weather-boards of the
building and shook the foundations OF
the bank. There is a limit to the
game now, and no single customer is
allowed to play higher than two plates
at one sitting, and he has to be a good
one to get that.