“One thing, by the way, that we know because the Bible tells us so,” said Emily, “is that Lot didn’t care a damn for his wife. If he had cared he would at least have looked round at her predicament; probably he would have tried to help her or melt her or something. We should have known if he had because he would have been preserved forever as a pillar, a monument to conjugal gentlemanliness. The cad.”
“We ought to get under cover. It’s going to rain; the cows are lying down,” said Lucy restlessly.
“Oh well, even a cow is human and may err,” said Emily.
But the stars became gradually absorbed in darkness.
As the final darkness fell they came to a deserted village consisting of a roadhouse, a shack or two and a barn, all empty. The travellers had with them dill pickles, a cucumber, canned tomatoes, raw eggs, raw potatoes and soda-crackers. They had also accumulated various bottles, one of very fulsome country-saloon port wine, two of gin, one of vermouth and two of whiskey.
The meal, eaten seated on the bare floor of the old roadhouse, seemed blessed. There was so much to drink. They all felt as if they had left themselves gloriously behind. There was no hint of life in the village except—far off—the asthmatic and difficult cry of a donkey. And a dog strayed in and joined the travellers. It did not seem to mind the fact that they all tried to be funny at its expense. Tam pulled its tail, lifted it up by its tail.
“The way to flatter a dog,” said Emily, “is to say, ‘What a nice new tail you are wearing today, darling.’ Dogs are frightfully sensitive about criticism of their tails. Of course most dogs have only one tail which they wear weekdays and Sundays, but they would never admit that. They only think to themselves, ‘How lucky I chose this one—I hesitated between the one with the black pin-spot and the plain white one—and how lucky it still looks new.”
“That reminds me of my new puce stockings,” said Melsie Ponting. “Do you know that no less than three gentlemen acquaintances—old beaux of mine, you know—stopped me on Geary to say how cute they looked. Don’t you want to say something about my puce stockings, Banner?”
Emily whispered incautiously to Edward, “I think she even sleeps with mistletoe over her bed.”