We had feared that this famous old
cabin of cheer might have gone west in the recent evaporation; but
rambling round in the neighbourhood of the Cooper Union we saw its
familiar doorway with a shock of glad surprise. After all, there is
no reason why the old-established houses should not go on doing a
good business on a Volstead basis. It has never been so much a
question of what a man drinks as the atmosphere in which he drinks
it. Atrocious cleanliness and glitter and raw naked marble make the
soda fountains a disheartening place to the average male. He likes
a dark, low-ceilinged, and not too obtrusively sanitary place to
take his ease. At McSorley's is everything that the innocent
fugitive from the world requires. The great amiable cats that purr
in the back room. The old pictures and playbills on the walls. The
ancient clocks that hoarsely twang the hours. We cannot imagine a
happier place to sit down with a pad of paper and a well-sharpened
pencil than at that table in the corner by the window. Or the table
just under that really lovely little portrait of Robert Burns--would
there be any more propitious place in New York at which to fashion
verses? There would be no interruptions, such as make versifying
almost impossible in a newspaper office. The friendly bartenders in
their lilac-coloured shirts are wise and gracious men. They would
not break in upon one's broodings.
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