By the door of the station-keeper’s den

By the door of the station-keeper’s den, outside , was a tin wash basin, on the ground. Near it was a pail of water and a piece of yellow bar soap, and from the eaves hung a hoary blue woolen shirt, significantly – but this latter was the station keeper’s private towel, and only two persons in all the party might venture to use it – the stage driver and the conductor. The latter would not, from a sense of decency; the former would not, because he did not choose to encourage the advances the advances of a station keeper. We had towels – in the valise; they might as well have been in Sodom and Gomorrah. We used our handkerchiefs, and the driver his pantaloons and sleeves. By the door inside was fastened a small old fashioned looking glass, with two little fragments of the original mirror lodged down in one corner of it. This arrangement afforded a pleasant double-barreled portrait of you when you looked into it, with one half of your head set up a couple of inches above the other half. From the glass frame hung the half of a comb by a string – but if I had to describe that patriarch or die, I believe I would order some sample coffins. . It had come down from Esau and Samson, and had been accumulating hair ever since – along with certain impurities. In one corner of the room stood three or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches of ammunition.
From the book “Roughing it” written by “Mark Twain.”