“So my house is a house that is sided against itself, like the Good Book says, and every member of the fambly has took sides one way or the other 'twixt my son and my son-in-lawr, and the Ol' Woman is agin both on 'em, and agin me, too--a-prayin' an' a-prayin' an' a-prayin'. “'You went and prayed for years an' years so as to get prohibish'n,' I tells her; 'an' now you got it--you got more on it than any woman I knows, for it's come right into your own home. An' now you got it you ain't satisfied with it--there you be onto your marrow bones prayin' agin the revenooers.' “I s'pose I was too hifalutin' an' ambitious, wantin' to keep two members of my fambly into the revenooer job. And as long as my son-in-lawr stays into office and continues to make his home with me I won't have no kick cornin', but will take my hootch in thankfulness and humility, like the Good Book says to do, eatin', drinkin' an' bein' merry. This yere leetle cloud of gloom what you notice is due to the Ol' Woman's prayers. I cain't help but feel she is goin' direct agin Scripter and her husband's best intrusts.” CHAPTER TWENTY--Continuing the History of the Rum Demon--the Barroom and Manners [Illustration: 0088] ANOTHER thing about those barrooms that has been vanished forever is the fact that most of them was right polite sort of places if a fellow edged up to the bar and knocked over your glass of whiskey or something like that he would say, O excuse me stranger and you would say sure, but look where in hell you are going to after this. Sure he would say no offence meant. No offence taken you would say to him. Have one with me he would say. No sooner said than done. But nowadays all you see and hear is bad manners and impoliteness with people hustling and bumping into each other on the subways and stepping on each other and women and children amongst them and nobody ever begging anybody's pardon and hard feelings everywhere. The trouble is everybody is sore and wanting a drink all the time and there is no place where the younger generation is going to learn good manners now that the barrooms is gone. What is the young fellows just growing up to manhood going to do for their manners now that the barrooms is closed, is what I want to know. It used to be you would get onto a subway train and there would be two or three women standing up and you would be setting down and there would be three or four drinks under your belt and you would be feeling good and you would say to yourself am I a gentleman or ain't I a gentleman. You're damned right I am a gentleman, you would say to yourself, here, lady, you set down, and don't let any of these here bums roust you out of that seat. If any of these here bums tries to roust you out of that seat I will put a tin ear onto them. That's the kind of a gentleman I am, lady, they would have a hell of a time, lady, getting your seat away from you with me here.