She tore her attention away from Zakheim's hands, looked down the table to where Goré sat. The Frenchman was a tall, gawk-necked man, entirely bald. Jet eyes behind steel-rimmed bifocals gave him a look of down-nose asperity like a comic bird. He wore one of his usual funereal black suits, every button secured. Knob wrists protruded from the sleeves. His long-fingered hands with their thick joints moved in constant restlessness.
"If I may differ with you, Zak," said Goré, "we are not all here. This is our same old group, and we were going to try to interest others in what we do here."
Ohashi spoke to Francine: "Have you had any luck inviting others to our conferences?"
"You can see that I'm alone," she said. "I chalked up five flat refusals today."
"Who?" asked Zakheim.
"The American Indian-Eskimo, the Hyperboreans, the Dravidians, the Malayo-Polynesians and the Caucasians."
"Hagglers!" barked Zakheim. "I, of course, can cover us with the Hamito-Semitic tongues, but...." He shook his head.
Goré turned to Ohashi. "The others?"
Ohashi said: "I must report the polite indifference of the Munda and Mon-Kmer, the Sudanese-Guinean and the Bantu."