VII
Mr. Oscar Hochlauf had been a saloon-keeper in the days before prohibition, but when prohibition came, he was a saloon-keeper. A very sound, old-fashioned, drowsy, agreeable resort was Oscar’s Place; none of the grander public houses had more artistic soap scrawls on the mirror behind the bar; none had spicier pickled herring.
Tonight there were three men before the bar: Emil Fischer, the carpenter, who had a mustache like an earmuff; his son Ben, whom Emil was training to drink wholesome beer instead of the whisky and gin which America was forcing on the people; and old Daddy Sorenson, the Swedish tailor.
They were discussing jazz.
“I came to America for liberty—I think Ben’s son will go back to Germany for liberty,” said Emil. “When I was a young man here, four of us used to play every Saturday evening—Bach we played, and Brahms—Gott weiss we played terrible, but we liked it, and we never made others listen. Now, wherever you go, this jazz, like a St. Vitus’s. Jazz iss to music what this Reverend Gantry you read about is to an old-time Prediger. I guess maybe he was never born, that Gantry fellow—he was blowed out of a saxophone.”
“Aw, this country’s all right, Pa,” said Ben.
“Sure, dot’s right,” said Oscar Hochlauf contentedly, while he sliced the foam off a glass of beer. “The Americans, like when I knew dem first, when dere was Bill Nye and Eugene Field, dey used to laugh. Now dey get solemn. When dey start laughing again, dey roar dere heads off at fellows like Gantry and most all dese preachers dat try to tell everybody how dey got to live. And if the people laugh—oof!—God help the preachers!”
“Vell, that’s how it is. Say, did I tell you, Oscar,” said the Swedish tailor, “my grandson Villiam, he got a scholarship in the university!”
“That’s fine!” they all agreed, slapping Daddy Sorenson on the back … as a dozen policemen, followed by a large and gloomy gentleman armed with a Bible, burst in through the front and back doors, and the gloomy gentleman, pointing at the astounded Oscar, bellowed, “Arrest that man and hold all these other fellows!”
To Oscar then, and to an audience increasing ten a second:
“I’ve got you! You’re the kind that teaches young boys to drink—it’s you that start them on the road to every hellish vice, to gambling and murder, with your hellish beverages, with your draught of the devil himself!”
Arrested for the first time in his life, bewildered, broken, feebly leaning on the arms of two policemen, Oscar Hochlauf straightened at this, and screamed:
“Dot’s a damned lie! Always when you let me, I handle Eitelbaum’s beer, the finest in the state, and since den I make my own beer. It is good! It is honest! ‘Hellish beverage!’ Dot you should judge of beer—dot a pig should judge poetry! Your Christ dot made vine, he vould like my beer!”
Elmer jumped forward with his great fist doubled. Only the sudden grip of the police sergeant kept him from striking down the blasphemer. He shrieked, “Take that foul-mouthed bum to the wagon! I’ll see he gets the limit!”
And Bill Kingdom murmured to himself, “Gallant preacher single-handed faces saloon full of desperate gunmen and rebukes them for taking the name of the Lord in vain. Oh, I’ll get a swell story. … Then I think I’ll commit suicide.”