... Somewhere, somewhere. But in my veins creep the maggots of the pox....
“Really, really!” Mrs. Viveash shook her head. “Too medical!”
... crawling towards the brain, crawling into the mouth, burrowing into the bones. Insatiably.
The Monster threw himself to the ground, and the curtain came down.
“And about time too!” declared Mrs. Viveash.
“Charming!” Gumbril stuck to his guns. “Charming! charming!”
There was a disturbance near the door. Mrs. Viveash looked round to see what was happening. “And now on top of it all,” she said, “here comes Coleman, raving, with an unknown drunk.”
“Have we missed it?” Coleman was shouting. “Have we missed all the lovely bloody farce?”
“Lovely bloody!” his companion repeated with drunken raptures, and he went into fits of uncontrollable laughter. He was a very young boy with straight dark hair and a face of Hellenic beauty, now distorted with tipsiness.
Coleman greeted his acquaintances in the hall, shouting a jovial obscenity to each. “And Bumbril-Gumbril,” he exclaimed, catching sight of him at last in the front row. “And Hetaira-Myra!” He pushed his way through the crowd, followed unsteadily by his young disciple. “So you’re here,” he said, standing over them and looking down with an enigmatic malice in his bright blue eyes. “Where’s the physiologue?”
“Am I the physiologue’s keeper?” asked Gumbril. “He’s with his glands and his hormones, I suppose. Not to mention his wife.” He smiled to himself.