April 5 Friday – Sam moved to the Tepfer House because he did not like the service at the Deming House [MTL 2: 20n2]. Alta California printed Sam’s article, “THE DREADFUL RUSSIAN BATH,” dated Feb. 23. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number X [bibliog.].
But the popular bar-keeper is the serenest villain of the lot. You have seen a vile, infernal waiter stand staring at vacancy with his complacent, exasperating smirk, pretending he didn’t know you had been trying to attract his attention for ten minutes—well, the popular bar-keeper mimics that to a charm. He even improves on it. When a party of gentlemen finally get him to notice them after much rattling of glasses, he don’t bow and smile and say “What will you have, gentlemen?” But he turns languidly upon them with an expression of countenance obtrusively intended to inform them that he knew they were calling all the time, and then stares impertinently at them without a word. That means, “Well, if you are going to name your drinks, you had better do it, that’s all!” It has a most excellent tendency—it soon stops people from drinking. If a man asks the popular cigar-vendor “Which are the best?” he intimates that he isn’t paid to choose cigars for people, or relieves his mind of some similar incivility. Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know of [Schmidt].