“Well, I notice in myself a kind of a habit growing up to blame everything onto Prohibition, just as Prohibitionists used to blame everything onto booze. I want to be fair to the drys, and I will say that neither Prohibition nor booze has much to do with making a mean man mean. I want to be fair to the drys, so as to show them up; they ain't fair to me, and when I'm fair to them it shows how superior I be.” CHAPTER TWELVE--More of the History--As It Used to Be of a Morning WELL, I promised I would tell just what those vanished barrooms was like, and I will tell the truth, so help me. One thing that I can't get used to going without is that long brass railing where you would rest your feet, and I have got one of them fixed up in my own bedroom now so when I get tired setting down I can go and stand up and rest my feet one at a time. Well, you would come in in the morning and you would say, Ed, I ain't feeling so good this morning. I wonder what could the matter be, Ed says, though he has got a pretty good idea of what it could be all the time. But he's too kind hearted to let on. I don't know, you says to Ed, I guess I am smoking too much lately. When you left here last night, Ed says, you seemed to be feeling all right, maybe what you got is a little touch of this here influenza. It ain't influenza, Ed, you says to him, it is them heavy cigars we was all smoking in here last night. I swallered too much of that smoke, Ed, and I got a headache this morning and my stomach feels kind o' like it was a democratic stomach all surrounded by republican voters, and a lot of that tobacco must of got into my eyes and I feel so rotten this morning that when my wife said are you going downtown without your breakfast I just said to her Hell and walked out to dodge a row because I could see she was bad tempered this morning. What would you say to a little absinthe, says Ed, sympathetic and helpful, a cocktail or frappy. No, says you, if you was to say what I used to say, I leave that there stuff to these here young cigarettesmoking squirts, which it always tasted like paregoric to me. Yes, sir, Ed says, it is one of them foreign things, and how about a milk punch, it is sometimes soothing when a person has smoked too much. No, Ed, you says, a milk punch is too much like vittles and I can't stand the idea of vittles. Yes, sir, Ed used to say, you are right, sir, how about a gin fizz. A gin fizz will bring back your stomach to life right gradual, sir, and not with a shock like being raised from the dead. Ed, you says to him, or leastways I always used to say, a silver fizz is too gentle, and one of them golden fizzes, with the yellow of an egg in it, has got the same objections as a milk punch, it is too much like vittles.