To supply his brothers' wants,
and create new ones at the same time, was his purpose in establishing
this Oasis in the Desert of Minerva Court; and it might as well be
stated here that he was prospered in his undertaking, as any man is sure
to be who cherishes lofty ideals and attends to his business
industriously.
The Minerva Courtier thus had good reason to hope that the supply of
liquid refreshment would bear some relation to the demand; and that the
march of modern progress would continue to diminish the distance between
his own mouth and that of the bottle, which, as he took it, was the
be-all and end-all of existence.
At present, however, as the Oasis was not open to the public, children
carrying pitchers of beer were often to be seen hurrying to and fro on
their miserable errands. But there were very few children in Minerva
Court, thank God!--they were not popular there. There were frowzy,
sleepy-looking women hanging out of their windows, gossiping with their
equally unkempt and haggard neighbors; apathetic men sitting on the
doorsteps, in their shirt-sleeves, smoking; a dull, dirty baby or two
sporting itself in the gutter; while the sound of a melancholy accordion
(the chosen instrument of poverty and misery) floated from an upper
chamber, and added its discordant mite to the general desolation.
The sidewalks had apparently never known the touch of a broom, and the
middle of the street looked more like an elongated junk-heap than
anything else.
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