"Because the air was so close, the whiskey so bad, the prices so high and the place so hard to climb up to, everyone came to Dockery's Dollhouse night after night while other bars stayed empty. / Everyone came, that is, but the law. To this lopsided shambles, where the floor slanted slightly, no police ever came. When the big hush fell that meant trouble was starting, the old man drew the shutters until the trouble was done. / The old man had himself never fought another man in his life – yet he took a senile pleasure in watching others go at it. He pretended that it was the manly thing, to ‘let them fight it out’ – but the titillating joy he took when the first blood flowed was a womanish delight."