Herman's perhaps not too subtle mind had never solved this problem of American morals--why his beverages should be seemly to drink on all days of the week, yet on one of them seemly but if taken behind shut doors and shielding curtains.

But he adhered conscientiously to the American rule.

His Lutheran pastor had once, in an effort to clear up the puzzle, explained to him that the Continental Sunday would never do at all in this land of his choice; but it left Herman still muddled, because fixed unalterably in his mind was a conviction that the Continental Sunday was the best of all Sundays.
Nor was there anything the least clandestine in this backdoor trade of Herman's on the Sabbath.

One had but to know the path to his door, and at this moment Newbern's mayor, old Doctor Purdy, sat at one of Herman's tables and sipped from a stone mug of beer and played a game of pinochle with stout, red-bearded Herman himself, overlooked by Minna, who had brought them their drink.
This was another thing about Herman's place that Newbern understood in time.

When he had begun business some dozen years before, and it was known that Minna came downstairs from their living rooms above the saloon and helped to serve his patrons, the scandal was high.