EMPTY BOTTLES By RAYMOND S. SPEARS What use had any six foot man for an empty one quart bottle? A rather large, awkward man shambled into the One Way Thru Saloon, sidled over to the bar and addressed Cock Eye Baer, the mixer. His voice was so low that Cock Eye leaned to hear and then asked for repetition of the nearly voiceless words. “I want a bottle!” the man blurted out. “Oh, yeh!” The bartender grinned fatly. “The question now is, gent, how big a bottle?” “A quart!” “A man’s size--and now what liquor’ll you have in it?” The familiar patrons were listening. The visitor was plainly modest, at least before beginning his drinks; but in buying by the bottleful he would obtain more liquor for much less money. And there was a certain aspect which indicated that the visitor was not quite familiar with the lingo or the customs of this business place. He had asked for a bottle--not for a quart of liquor. He was a long time coming to the point, too. “Why, if you please, I don’t want no liquor; I want an empty bottle!” “An _empty_ bottle?” “Yes, sir!” the awkward fellow said, deprecatorily, “I want it clean--you know--no whisky or anything--” “As though whisky ever soiled the insides of a bottle!” some one exclaimed sorrowfully. “Go in back!” The bartender lifted his flat nose. “Lotsa bottles out there!” The man went through into the yard. He returned, smelling alternately of two flat quart bottles, one white, the other brown. They smelled of whisky and he rinsed them many times, finally taking the white one with him down the street. The saloon crowd watched him take his departure. “What d’ye make of him?” one asked snortily. “What he needs is a nipple to go on that bottle!” Cock Eye grinned. The laughter of the listeners was loud, prolonged, and terminated by a serious round of drinks. Cock Eye was always good that way. He talked brightly and smartly. After several had bought, the bartender served a drink on the house. And then a man came in the front door. The boys gathered around him, made sure he had a drink and then all of them told him what Cock Eye had said when a fellow took an empty bottle out the front door, instead of a full one. It was awfully funny, but Cock Eye had to elucidate his wit himself, because none of the explainers had exactly the lingo and tang with which to tell the story. * * * * * The following afternoon along Butte Street Cock Eye, who was off for the day, saw the awkward fellow coming down the side of the square, shambling. The bartender grinned reminiscently so that the stranger angled over and addressed him. “I don’t know’f I thanked ye for that bottle,” the man said. “I had to have it for a baby a lady had down’t the camp. You see, you fill it full of pretty middlin’ warm water an’ when the kid has the stomach ache you put the bottle on the stomach, which warms it. Course you wrap it in rags.”