He looked the first, and from his antic disposition I was convinced he was already more than half drunk. But I was entirely unprepared for the result which my statement brought about.
The angular figure became convulsed with immoderate laughter on the instant. He shouted and screamed with mirth, bending forward, thrusting backward, holding his ribs with one hand—the other was busy with the oilcloth bundle, which he never forgot—turning that repellent chin to the sky, and yelling his insane, cackling, demoniac merriment to the first stars. I thought he would surely have some sort of fit before my eyes, so overcome was he with glee. I stood erect and dignified, waiting for his stormy risibles to allay. After a full two minutes of noisy rapture, he calmed down somewhat, drew forth a bottle of remarkable size and tilted it with the neck between his lips. Making a smacking sound of satisfaction as he finished the draught, he half lurched, half walked toward me, extending the bottle as he came.
"Good fur rheumatiz," he said, stopping at arm's length, and good-naturedly leering his invitation for me to partake.
I shook my head.
"No.... Thank you."
There was an expression on his countenance which disarmed me of my wrath. At close range I searched his features. They were irregular, undecided. His nose was pug—another satyr touch—and his neck long, thin and ridged. I could not see his eyes. But something about him came out to me as an appeasing and soothing agent. Worse than useless for me to speculate as to what it was. A nameless something, probably, which acted upon my spirit, or nature, and charmed it in a way. I knew this thing before me was a fragment, a waif, a bit of flotsam on Life's sea. He could be nothing else. And yet—and yet, as he stood patiently with that enormous bottle stuck under my nose, and the genial, whole-hearted leer of invitation on his pagan face, I knew a sudden kinship; a quick, sympathetic rush of feeling, and as I waved the bottle aside with my left hand I thrust out my right and grasped his as it hung limply in front of the bundle he still pressed to his side with his elbow.
"I don't want your liquor, Satyr," I said; "but you may sit down and talk to me if you want to."
"Don't want good liquor?" he repeated, batting his lids, and lowering the bottle as though puzzled beyond understanding.
"Not now; not often. Sometimes I do. But what sort of stuff is that?"
I had just noticed the contents of the bottle was clear.