“No.”
Coleman once more lifted his hat. “O eloquent, just and mighty Death!” he exclaimed, and replaced it on his head. “You never read any papers at all—not even our friend Mercaptan’s delicious little middles in the weeklies? How is your delicious little middle, by the way?” Coleman turned to Mr. Mercaptan and with the point of his huge stick gave him a little prod in the stomach. “Ça marche—les tripes? Hein?” He turned back to Shearwater. “Not even those?” he asked.
“Never,” said Shearwater. “I have more serious things to think about than newspapers.”
“And what serious thing, may I ask?”
“Well, at the present moment,” said Shearwater, “I am chiefly preoccupied with the kidneys.”
“The kidneys!” In an ecstasy of delight, Coleman thumped the floor with the ferrule of his stick. “The kidneys! Tell me all about kidneys. This is of the first importance. This is really life. And I shall sit down at your table without asking permission of Buonarotti here, and in the teeth of Mercaptan, and without so much as thinking about this species of Gumbril, who might as well not be there at all. I shall sit down and——”
“Talking of sitting,” said Gumbril, “I wish I could persuade you to order a pair of my patent pneumatic trousers. They will——”
Coleman waved him away. “Not now, not now,” he said. “I shall sit down and listen to the physiologue talking about runions, while I myself actually eat them—sautés. Sautés, mark my words.”
Laying his hat and stick on the floor beside him, he sat down at the end of the table, between Lypiatt and Shearwater.
“Two believers,” he said, laying his hand for a moment on Lypiatt’s arm, “and three black-hearted unbelievers—confronted. Eh, Buonarotti? You and I are both croyants et pratiquants, as Mercaptan would say. I believe in one devil, father quasi-almighty, Samael and his wife, the Woman of Whoredom. Ha, ha!” He laughed his ferocious, artificial laugh.