Than
Be a wet rag in a hell of water.”
“That,” said Avery Bird quickly, anxious to make his voice heard in the first silence, “is as full of meat as a unicorn’s belly in springtime. That’s real stuff.”
Other people murmured, “Too wet.” “Not sanitary.”
The white-faced apostle shouted, “Oh, get on, get on. The next one can’t be worse.”
“I can’t seem to get a hold on the rhythm,” said an innocent Canadian broker. Edward and he had made friends because both were familiar with the same supper places in the vicinity of Leicester Square. The broker had brought his wife, a rough-hewn looking lady, whose very hat seemed to be chipped out of marble and ornamented with a wooden feather.
“It is swollen with rhythm,” shouted Avery Bird. “It isn’t blatant enough, of course, to allow you to hear it. It is all that rhythm can be without being metronomic.”
Mr. Bird seemed so certain that nobody liked to contradict him. He leaned forward tapping the table angrily and glaring first at one fellow-guest and then at another.
“Speed up. Speed up.”