The Lost Blend

by O. Henry

　　

---

Since the bar has been blessed by the clergy, and cocktails open thedinners of the elect, one may speak of the saloon. Teetotalers neednot listen, if they choose; there is always the slot restaurant,where a dime dropped into the cold bouillon aperture will bringforth a dry Martini.Con Lantry worked on the sober side of the bar in Kenealy's cafe.You and I stood, one-legged like geese, on the other side and wentinto voluntary liquidation with our week's wages. Opposite dancedCon, clean, temperate, clear-headed, polite, white-jacketed,punctual, trustworthy, young, responsible, and took our money.The saloon (whether blessed or cursed) stood in one of those little"places" which are parallelograms instead of streets, and inhabitedby laundries, decayed Knickerbocker families and Bohemians who havenothing to do with either.Over the cafe lived Kenealy and his family. His daughter Katherinehad eyes of dark Irish--but why should you be told? Be content withyour Geraldine or your Eliza Ann. For Con dreamed of her; and whenshe called softly at the foot of the back stairs for the pitcher ofbeer for dinner, his heart went up and down like a milk punch in theshaker. Orderly and fit are the rules of Romance; and if you hurlthe last shilling of your fortune upon the bar for whiskey, thebartender shall take it, and marry his boss's daughter, and goodwill grow out of it.But not so Con. For in the presence of woman he was tongue-tied andscarlet. He who would quell with his eye the sonorous youth whomthe claret punch made loquacious, or smash with lemon squeezer theobstreperous, or hurl gutterward the cantankerous without a wrinklecoming to his white lawn tie, when he stood before woman he wasvoiceless, incoherent, stuttering, buried beneath a hot avalancheof bashfulness and misery. What then was he before Katherine? Atrembler, with no word to say for himself, a stone without blarney,the dumbest lover that ever babbled of the weather in the presenceof his divinity.There came to Kenealy's two sunburned men, Riley and McQuirk. Theyhad conference with Kenealy; and then they took possession of aback room which they filled with bottles and siphons and jugs anddruggist's measuring glasses. All the appurtenances and liquids ofa saloon were there, but they dispensed no drinks. All day longthe two sweltered in there pouring and mixing unknown brews anddecoctions from the liquors in their store. Riley had the education,and he figured on reams of paper, reducing gallons to ounces andquarts to fluid drams. McQuirk, a morose man with a red eye, dashedeach unsuccessful completed mixture into the waste pipes with cursesgentle, husky and deep. They labored heavily and untiringly toachieve some mysterious solution like two alchemists striving toresolve gold from the elements.Into this back room one evening when his watch was done saunteredCon. His professional curiosity had been stirred by these occultbartenders at whose bar none drank, and who daily drew uponKenealy's store of liquors to follow their consuming and fruitlessexperiments.Down the back stairs came Katherine with her smile like sunrise onGweebarra Bay."Good evening, Mr. Lantry," says she. "And what is the news to-day,if you please?""It looks like r-rain," stammered the shy one, backing to the wall."It couldn't do better," said Katherine. "I'm thinking there'snothing the worse off for a little water." In the back roomRiley and McQuirk toiled like bearded witches over their strangecompounds. From fifty bottles they drew liquids carefully measuredafter Riley's figures, and shook the whole together in a great glassvessel. Then McQuirk would dash it out, with gloomy profanity, andthey would begin again."Sit down," said Riley to Con, "and I'll tell you."Last summer me and Tim concludes that an American bar in thisnation of Nicaragua would pay. There was a town on the coast wherethere's nothing to eat but quinine and nothing to drink but rum. Thenatives and foreigners lay down with chills and get up with fevers;and a good mixed drink is nature's remedy for all such tropicalinconveniences."So we lays in a fine stock of wet goods in New York, and barfixtures and glassware, and we sails for that Santa Palma town ona lime steamer. On the way me and Tim sees flying fish and playsseven-up with the captain and steward, and already begins to feellike the high-ball kings of the tropics of Capricorn."When we gets in five hours of the country that we was going tointroduce to long drinks and short change the captain calls us overto the starboard binnacle and recollects a few things."'I forgot to tell you, boys,' says he, 'that Nicaragua slapped animport duty of 48 per cent. ad valorem on all bottled goods lastmonth. The President took a bottle of Cincinnati hair tonic bymistake for tobasco sauce, and he's getting even. Barrelled goods isfree.'"'Sorry you didn't mention it sooner,' says we. And we bought twoforty-two gallon casks from the captain, and opened every bottle wehad and dumped the stuff all together in the casks. That 48 per centwould have ruined us; so we took the chances on making that $1,200cocktail rather than throw the stuff away."Well, when we landed we tapped one of the barrels. The mixture wassomething heartrending. It was the color of a plate of Bowery peasoup, and it tasted like one of those coffee substitutes your auntmakes you take for the heart trouble you get by picking losers. Wegave a n----- four fingers of it to try it, and he lay under acocoanut tree three days beating the sand with his heels and refusedto sign a testimonial."But the other barrel! Say, bartender, did you ever put on a strawhat with a yellow band around it and go up in a balloon with apretty girl with $8,000,000 in your pocket all at the same time?That's what thirty drops of it would make you feel like. With twofingers of it inside you you would bury your face in your hands andcry because there wasn't anything more worth while around for you tolick than little Jim Jeffries. Yes, sir, the stuff in that secondbarrel was distilled elixir of battle, money and high life. It wasthe color of gold and as clear as glass, and it shone after darklike the sunshine was still in it. A thousand years from now you'llget a drink like that across the bar."Well, we started up business with that one line of drinks, and itwas enough. The piebald gentry of that country stuck to it like ahive of bees. If that barrel had lasted that country would havebecome the greatest on earth. When we opened up of mornings we had aline of Generals and Colonels and ex-Presidents and revolutionists ablock long waiting to be served. We started in at 50 cents silver adrink. The last ten gallons went easy at $5 a gulp. It was wonderfulstuff. It gave a man courage and ambition and nerve to do anything;at the same time he didn't care whether his money was tainted orfresh from the Ice Trust. When that barrel was half gone Nicaraguahad repudiated the National debt, removed the duty on cigarettes andwas about to declare war on the United States and England."'Twas by accident we discovered this king of drinks, and 'twillbe by good luck if we strike it again. For ten months we've beentrying. Small lots at a time, we've mixed barrels of all the harmfulingredients known to the profession of drinking. Ye could havestocked ten bars with the whiskies, brandies, cordials, bitters,gins and wines me and Tim have wasted. A glorious drink like thatto be denied to the world! 'Tis a sorrow and a loss of money. TheUnited States as a nation would welcome a drink of that sort, andpay for it."All the while McQuirk lead been carefully measuring and pouringtogether small quantities of various spirits, as Riley called them,from his latest pencilled prescription. The completed mixture was ofa vile, mottled chocolate color. McQuirk tasted it, and hurled it,with appropriate epithets, into the waste sink."'Tis a strange story, even if true," said Con. "I'll be going nowalong to my supper.""Take a drink," said Riley. "We've all kinds except the lost blend.""I never drink," said Con, "anything stronger than water. I am justafter meeting Miss Katherine by the stairs. She said a true word.'There's not anything,' says she, 'but is better off for a littlewater.'"When Con had left them Riley almost felled McQuirk by a blow on theback."Did ye hear that?" he shouted. "Two fools are we. The six dozenbottles of 'pollinaris we had on the slip--ye opened themyourself--which barrel did ye pour them in--which barrel, yemudhead?""I mind," said McQuirk, slowly, "'twas in the second barrel weopened. I mind the blue piece of paper pasted on the side of it.""We've got it now," cried Riley. "'Twas that we lacked. 'Tis thewater that does the trick. Everything else we had right. Hurry, man,and get two bottles of 'pollinaris from the bar, while I figure outthe proportionments with me pencil."An hour later Con strolled down the sidewalk toward Kenealy's cafe.Thus faithful employees haunt, during their recreation hours, thevicinity where they labor, drawn by some mysterious attraction.A police patrol wagon stood at the side door. Three able cops werehalf carrying, half hustling Riley and McQuirk up its rear steps.The eyes and faces of each bore the bruises and cuts of sanguinaryand assiduous conflict. Yet they whooped with strange joy, anddirected upon the police the feeble remnants of their pugnaciousmadness."Began fighting each other in the back room," explained Kenealy toCon. "And singing! That was worse. Smashed everything pretty muchup. But they're good men. They'll pay for everything. Trying toinvent some new kind of cocktail, they was. I'll see they come outall right in the morning."Con sauntered into the back room to view the battlefield. As he wentthrough the hall Katherine was just coming down the stairs."Good evening again, Mr. Lantry," said she. "And is there no newsfrom the weather yet?""Still threatens r-rain," said Con, slipping past with red in hissmooth, pale cheek.Riley and McQuirk had indeed waged a great and friendly battle.Broken bottles and glasses were everywhere. The room was full ofalcohol fumes; the floor was variegated with spirituous puddles.On the table stood a 32-ounce glass graduated measure. In the bottomof it were two tablespoonfuls of liquid--a bright golden liquid thatseemed to hold the sunshine a prisoner in its auriferous depths.Con smelled it. He tasted it. He drank it.As he returned through the hall Katherine was just going up thestairs."No news yet, Mr. Lantry?" she asked with her teasing laugh.Con lifted her clear from the floor and held her there."The news is," he said, "that we're to be married.""Put me down, sir!" she cried indignantly, "or I will-- Oh, Con,where, oh, wherever did you get the nerve to say it?"

---

---