Coming into Great
Barrington, he asked the first man he met where the tavern was.
"That's it, over yonder," said the man, jerking his thumb over his
shoulder at a nondescript building some way ahead.
"That looks more like a jail."
"Wal, so 'tis. The jail's in the ell part o' the tavern. Cephe Bement
keeps 'em both."
"It's a queer notion to put em under the same roof."
"I dunno 'bout that, nuther. It's mostly by way o' the tavern that
fellers gits inter jail, I calc'late."
Perez laughed, and riding up to the tavern end of the jail, dismounted,
and going into the barroom, ordered a plate of pork and beans. Feeling
in excellent humor he fell to conversing over his modest meal with the
landlord, a big, beefy man, who evidently liked to hear himself talk,
and in a gross sort of way, appeared to be rather good natured.
"I saw a good many red flags on farmhouses, as I was coming up from
Sheffield, this morning," said Perez. "You haven't got the smallpox in
the county again, have you?"
"Them wuz sheriff's sales," said the landlord, laughing uproariously,
in which he was joined by a seedy, red-nosed character, addressed as
Zeke, who appeared to be a hanger-on of the barroom in the function of
echo to the landlord's jokes.
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