Tales From Gavagan's Bar by L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt Read Free Book Online Page A

spend the time in a cabin in Tahiti.
     
                  He laid the tickets beside Betty-Jo's plate. Everyone applauded, but she looked so white we all thought she was going to faint. I was the only one at the table who understood why. And I'm one of the few people who understands what's happened to them now. And I'm worried myself, because Walter is talking about taking a trip to Europe. You see?
     
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                  The bus boy came over to the table. "It's Professor Thott on the phone," he said. "He says he's awful sorry he's late, but there was a meeting of the trustees at the college, and he'll be right over , and do you want to talk to him?"
     
                  "No," said Mrs. Jonas. "Not now. Tell him I'm very sorry, too, but I wasn't feeling well and decided to go home this evening. I'll see him later."
     
                  She got up. "Thank you," she said to Eloise Grady, and went out.
     
    -
     
BEASTS OF BOURBON              
     
                  Mr. Gross leaned about two hundred of his pounds on the edge of the bar, so that part of him bulged over it, and said: "Mr. Co-han, I feel like variety this evening. How about a Yellow Rattler?"
     
                  The tall, saturnine-looking man said: "You better be careful. It's the queer drinks like that that end you up with the d.t.'s."
     
                  "Not no more than the rest," said the bartender, mixing away. "It's all how you take them. Funny that you would be mentioning d.t.'s. along with a Yellow Rattler, now, Mr. Willison. The very last one I mixed in this bar was for that Mr. Van Nest, the poor young felly. The animals was after him, he said, and he needed a drink. But he acted sober when he came in here. As long as a man can stand up and behave himself he can have a drink in Gavagan's."
     
                  "Ah, it's a shame when a man has to take so much liquor he gets d.t.'s," said Gross. "I got a nephew knew a man like that once. He cut off one of his own toes with a butcher-knife, saying it was a snake trying to bite him. But he was one of them solitary drinkers."
     
                  "Campbell Van Nest wasn't a solitary drinker," said Willison. "Just a solitary guy. Though he had to be after his animals started coming alive on him."
     
                  "Huh?" said Mr. Witherwax, almost choking on the olive from his Martini. "What animals? How did they come alive?"
     
                  "The animals out of his d.t.'s," said Willison. "I saw them. So did you, didn't you, Mr. Cohan?"
     
                  "Never a one," said Mr. Cohan, swabbing the bar. "That was why he came here, because they would not follow him into Gavagan's. But there's plenty would swear on the blessed sacraments they did see them. Like Patrolman Krevitz, that me brother Julius says is one of the steadiest men on the force, and old man Webster in the tailor shop. Not to be mentioning yourself, Mr. Willison."
     
                  "You say the animals from his d.t.'s came alive?" said Witherwax. "I'd like to hear about this. I was just reading in a book about something like that. They call it materialization."
     
                  "Well, I don't know," said Willison. "The few of us who knew him have always rather kept it quiet. . ."

                  "You can tell them," said Mr. Cohan. "No harm to anybody now the poor young felly is dead and gone, and his animals with him."
     
                  "Mmm. I suppose you're right," said Willison. "Well—fill me up another rye and water, Mr. Cohan, and let's see. I want to get this straight."
     
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                  Campbell Van Nest [said Willison] was one of those natural-born square pegs, I guess. Nice-looking chap, nothing remarkable about him in any way, but it was as thou gh he and the world had made an