Patrick Hogan was trying to show Avalon how to sing When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.
Zellermann was saying: "... tomorrow will be soon enough."
"There's plenty of time," Cookie said.
They started towards the bar.
Mr. Pairfield had already drifted over there in a rather forlorn way — perhaps because nobody was offering him any immediate appreciation, and perhaps because of an understandable reluctance to invite any more of Hogan's uninhibited hostility. He had made another distasteful survey of the Saint's well-aged uncouthness, and averted his pure pretty face to review the color scheme of fluids and labels on the background shelves.
"I wonder," he muttered, with almost pathetic audibility, "if I'm in the mood for some Crème Violette?"
Simon didn't violently detest Mr. Pairfield, and all his instincts were against wasting gratuitous abuse on such creatures; but he was irrevocably playing a part, and he was still sure that Hogan was the star to which his wagon had to stay hitched until a better form of traction came along,
"Wot?" he said sourly. "Ain't there no Cream Pansiette 'ere?"
Mr. Pairfield was emboldened by his surroundings to tilt an offended nose.
He said superciliously: "I beg your pardon?"