Bar (fastening)

“ Liquor there is—but how I miss the Bar! I miss a certain attitude of mind, Congenial, which I seek but never find Except beneath the golden triple star Which from the brandy bottle shines afar. I miss a type of jest that was designed For roaring barrooms warmed with booze, and kind— Good Gawd! how coarse and low my real tastes are. I miss an ambling, splay-foot waiter's beak, Which like some red peninsula of hell Glowed through the humming barroom's smoky reek— I miss the lies I used to hear men tell Over the telephone to waiting wives— What sweet aromas had these joyous lives! ”

“ Three practical men went strolling West,
Out into the West as the Bar came down;
Each said to the workmen, “May you be blest,
For moving this obstacle out of the town!
For cabs still crawl, and ’busses still creep—
While stultified aldermen vainly weep,
Their ancient Bar bemoaning.”
Three barmaids stood in their gas-lit bower,
And filled each glass as the Bar came down;
And the practical gentlemen looked at the shower,
And the mud that was rolling up slimy and brown,
For men will drink, and women must keep
Replenishing beakers, while potions deep
Are quaffed to the Bar and its “boning.” ”

“ The bar-room was filled with men in shanty dress, some sitting with chairs tipped back against the wall, smoking the black French "twist" tobacco; others drinking at the bar; and others still at the tables that stood in one corner of the room playing cards with loud exclamations and oaths of delight or disgust, according to their fortune. ”

“ From the day the tavern was opened, and Frank drew into his lungs full draughts of the changed atmosphere by which he was now surrounded, the work of moral deterioration commenced. The very smell of the liquor exhilarated him unnaturally; while the subjects of conversation, so new to him, that found discussion in the bar-room, soon came to occupy a prominent place in his imagination, to the exclusion of those humane, child-like, tender, and heavenly thoughts and impressions it had been the mother's care to impart and awaken.
Ah! with what an eager zest does the heart drink in of evil. ”

“ Modern taste is conspicuous here, nothing is gaudy, colors are subdued, and its decorations are simple even the bar itself is refined, substantial, decorous, wanting entirely the meretricious glitter and barbarous ornamentation of the old structures of this sort, and the attendants have wholly laid aside the smart antics of the former bartender, and the customers are swiftly and silently served by the deferential waiters. ”

“ On the right-hand side, nearest the door, is the bar, over which presides a genius of the male sex, whose chief attractions consists of a decided red head, and an immense paste breastpin, stuck into the bosom of a ruffled shirt. The bar is well furnished, and any drink called for, from beer to champagne, can be instantly obtained. ”

“ Again the loud voices of men in angry strife arose in the bar-room. I did not return there to learn the cause, or to witness the fiend-like conduct of the men, all whose worst passions were stimulated by drink into the wildest fervor. As I was entering my room, the thought flashed through my mind that, as Green was found there, it needed only the bare suggestion that I had aided in his concealment, to direct toward me the insane fury of the drunken mob.
"It is not safe to remain here." ”

“ The barkeeper and proprietor, both in their shirt sleeves, are behind it. On one side of the bar is a slightly-raised platform, upon which is a piano-player, a violinist and a shrill fifer. This is the music that charms and attracts. Around the room are men of all kinds, sailors, laboring men, seedy individuals, lovers, thieves, a few poor gamblers, fellows in hard luck and waiting for "something to turn up." Sprinkled over the place, talking, laughing, joking and striving to induce them to buy drinks, are a number of the waiter girls. ”

“ The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters was a bar to soften the human breast. The available space in it was not much larger than a hackney-coach; but no one could have wished the bar bigger, that space was so girt in by corpulent little casks, and by cordial-bottles radiant with fictitious grapes in bunches, and by lemons in nets, and by biscuits in baskets, and by the polite beer-pulls that made low bows when customers were served with beer, and by the cheese in a snug corner, and by the landlady's own small table in a snugger corner near the fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid. ”

“ You might think that he would have gladly availed himself of this opportunity for resting awhile by sitting at a marble-topped table and drinking coffee or tea, or—horrid thought!—cocoa. But no; he isn't happy unless he leans over his refreshment; and the café-bar has [Pg 64] supplied his demands. There is something in leaning against a bar which entirely changes one's outlook. You may sit at a table and drink whisky-and-soda, and yet not achieve a tithe of the expansiveness that is yours when you are leaning against a bar and drinking dispiriting stuff like coffee or sirop. ”

“ Hammond stood for some minutes leaning on the bar, and then, not once again looking toward that part of the room where Mr. Harrison was seated, passed out through the door leading to the street. Soon afterward Mr. Harrison departed.
Disgusted, as on the night before, with the unceasing flow of vile, obscene, and profane language, I left my place of observation in the bar-room and sought the open air. The sky was unobscured by a single cloud, and the moon, almost at the full, shone abroad with more than common brightness. ”

“ Somehow we drifted around to the hotel where the outfit were supposed to be stopping, and lined up at the bar for a final drink. It was just daybreak, and between that Dutch cattle salesman and the barkeeper and myself, it would have taken a bookkeeper to have kept a check on the drinks we consumed—every one the last. ”

“ The bar is one of the most—if not the most—important departments in the hotel; comparatively nothing is drunk at dinner, but the moment the meal is over, the bar becomes assailed by applicants; moreover, from morning to midnight, there is a continuous succession of customers; not merely the lodgers and their friends, but any parties passing along the street, who feel disposed, walk into the bar of any hotel, and get "a drink." The money taken at a popular bar in the course of a day is, I believe, perfectly fabulous. ”

“ Several men of his own class were standing by him, and though early in the day, groups of gin-drinking men and women had assembled in the four compartments into which the bar was divided. The floor had been swept and covered with sawdust, which gave it a [131] comfortable appearance, while its spaciousness and highly-varnished hundred-gallon hogsheads, the gilded frame-work of the plate-glass panelling, the bright rows of wine and spirit bottles, and the active movements of the landlord and two barmen, rendered the place attractive and pleasant to the miserably clad customers. ”

“ On the ground-floor there is a spacious and scrupuluously clean bar, and the bar space in front is partly occupied by a bagatelle-table for the innocent amusement of those who have neither taste nor talent for dancing. ”

“ I stand drinks all round. What say you, fellars?” A murmur of assent answered the interrogatory.
“Good!” continued the speaker. “Hyar, bar-keeper! drinks for the crowd!”
And so saying, he of the white-hat and jeans coat stepped forward to the bar, and placed a couple of dollars upon the counter. All who were near followed him, shouting each out the name of the beverage most to his liking in the various calls of “gin-sling,” “cocktail,” “cobbler,” “julep,” “brandy-smash,” and such-like interesting mixtures.
In America men do not sit and sip their liquor, but drink standing. ”

“ Besides the man behind the bar, a rather rough looking foreigner, a Pole in West's judgment, three customers were in the place, two with feet upon the rail talking with the drink dispenser, and, one at a small table moodily contemplating a half emptied stein of beer. ”

“ How badly his hand shook—so badly that he spilled the brandy both in pouring it out and in lifting the glass to his lips! What a shattered wreck he was! He looked really worse now than he did on the day before, when drink gave an artificial vitality to his system, a tension to his muscles, and light to his countenance. The miller of ten years ago, and the tavern-keeper of today! Who could have identified them as one?
Slade was turning from the bar, when a man? came in. I noticed an instant change in the landlord's countenance. He looked startled; almost frightened. ”

“ After waiting on some new customers, who were just entering, Matthew went up-stairs to obtain the desired information. As he left the bar-room, Frank got up and went behind the counter, where he mixed himself a glass of liquor, and drank it off, evidently with real enjoyment.
"Rather a dangerous business for one so young as you are," remarked the gentleman with whom I had come, as Frank stepped out of the bar, and passed near where we were standing. ”

“ Sometimes I changed hands twenty times a day. I saw the inside of every business; I fought for my owner’s every pleasure. It seemed that on Saturday nights I never missed being slapped down on a bar. Tens were always slapped down, while ones and twos were slid over to the bartenders folded. I got in the habit of looking for mine, and I managed to soak in a little straight or some spilled Martini or Manhattan whenever I could. Once I got tied up in a great greasy, roll of bills in a pushcart peddler’s jeans. ”

“ There is no one to be seen. It is a cold, frost-strong, clear morning. There is no one in the bar. We stumble down the dark tunnel passage. The stanza is as if no man had ever set foot in it: very dark, the mats against the wall, the fire-place grey with a handful of long dead ash. Just like a dungeon. The dining-room has the same long table and eternal table-cloth—and [Pg 207] our serviettes, still wet, lying where we shovelled them aside. So back again to the bar.
And this time a man is drinking aqua vitae, and the dirty-shirt is officiating. ”

“ The gaslights shine brightly out from the gin-palaces, and great business is in course of being there carried on. Numbers go in and out, and the glass-doors are ever on the swing. Through these doors glimpses can be caught of crowds of men and women standing at the bar drinking, and waiting to be served ”

“ An exception is the bar, which, of course, was a fixture and part of the inn structure. Our modern bar with its almost invariable ugliness, its row of vertical handles for drawing beer, and its aggressive [Pg 245] cash register, is a poor survival of the Jacobean bar, an example of which is still in existence at the Maid’s Head, Norwich. It is worthy of recollection that the high stools which enable one to sit at a bar are quite of modern origin. Bar lounging evidently did not become a habit until the nineteenth century. People sat down and had their refreshments at ease. ”

“ Among the regular visitors are at least half a dozen young men, belonging to our best families—who have been raised with care, and well educated. That their presence here is unknown to their friends, I am quite certain—or, at least, unknown and unsuspected by some of them. They do not drink a great deal yet; but all try a glass or two. Toward nine o'clock, often at an earlier hour, you will see one and another of them go quietly out of the bar, through the sitting-room, preceded, or soon followed, by Green and Slade. ”

“ This is a favourite pastime of mine when George insists on taking me into taverns. I like to speculate dreamily upon the various flavours. If one is not really fond of drink one can do this without feeling ashamed. It becomes a purely intellectual pursuit.
Suddenly I was aware of a disturbance in the opposite bar. A dialogue was in progress between my friend the barman and a gigantic navvy, proportionately inebriated.
"Pot o' 'arf-an'-'arf, an' not ser much jaw," demanded the latter.
"Yer won't get no more 'ere," replied the barman coldly. "Yer drunk as it is. Go 'ome to bed." ”

“ Art would drift away and lean on the other end of the bar and then drift back to me and at the end of each trip there would be clean ashtrays and the dark plastic along the bar would gleam and there would be no dregs of dead drinks and the rows of fresh glasses would align themselves in empty rows on the stainless steel of the lower counter. ”

“ On my return to the tavern the tragedy was already concluded; and, being a feeble one in itself and indifferently performed, it left so much the better chance for the Story-Teller. The bar was thronged with customers, the toddy-stick keeping a continual tattoo; while in the hall there was a broad, deep, buzzing sound, with an occasional peal of impatient thunder,--all symptoms of all overflowing house and an eager audience. I drank a glass of wine-and-water, and stood at the side scene conversing with a young person of doubtful sex. ”

“ As evening began to fall, the gambler's unsuccessful pursuers, one after another, found their way to the tavern, and by the time night had fairly closed in, the bar-room was crowded with excited and angry men, chafing over their disappointment, and loud in their threats of vengeance. That Green had made good his escape, was now the general belief ”

“ Nothing to do with the Bar that LOCKWOOD, ASQUITH, and REID adorn; merely a counter, at which they sell what JEMMY LOWTHER alludes to, with a bewitching air of distant acquaintance, as "alcoholic liquors." MORTON, whose great ambition in life is to make people thoroughly comfortable, wants to close the Bar. ”

“ The walls of the bar-room are perforated in all directions with trap-doors. Through one of these drinks are passed into the back sitting-room. Through others drinks are passed into the passages. Drinks are also passed through the floor and through the ceiling. Drinks once passed never return. The Proprietor stands in the doorway of the bar. He weighs two hundred pounds. His face is immovable as putty. He is drunk. He has been drunk for twelve years. It makes no difference to him. Behind the bar stands the Bar-tender. ”