'Want me?' asked Caffyn, as I pushed a chair for him.
'What for? If it's to admire the 'rainbow' you've been mixing,
I'm a connoisseur and I don't pass it. Your hand's steady
enough, one or two lines admirably defined, but you've gotten
the pink noyau and the _parfait amour_ into their wrong billets.
If, on the other hand, you want me to drink it, I'll see you to
hell first." . . . Then, as I introduced him, "Good evening,
Mr. Farrell. I am pleased to meet you in this meretricious
haunt of gaiety. If I may be allowed to say so, you set it off,
sir.'
"'Sit down a moment,' said I. 'We didn't intrude upon your
solitary table, thinking--'
"'I know,' he caught me up. 'Natural delicacy of Britishers--
'Here's a fellow learning to take his pleasures sadly.
We'll give him time.' And I, gentlemen, allowed that it was
'way down in Cupid's garden--Damon and Pythias discovered hand
in hand--no gooseberries, by request. . . . If you'd like to be
told how I was occupied, I was chewing--ay, marry and go to--
I was one with my distant father's most fatted calf--fed up and
chewing.
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