"_Mang._"
He said it almost petulantly, or as a child says "Tag! You're it."
The onlookers recoiled, completely surprised. Whereat the frightened
youth in black puttees sidled over and explained with a pathetic, at once
ingratiating and patronising, accent.
"He is not nasty. He's a good fellow. He's my friend. He wants to say
that it's his, that box. He doesn't speak French."
"It's the _Gottverdummer_ Polak's box," said the Triangular Man exploding
in Dutch. "They're a pair of Polakers; and this man" (with a twist of his
pale-blue eyes in the direction of the Bewhiskered One) "and I had to
carry it all the _Gottverdummer_ way to this _Gottverdummer_ place."
All this time the incognizable _nouveau_ was smoking slowly and calmly,
and looking at nothing at all with his black buttonlike eyes. Upon his
face no faintest suggestion of expression could be discovered by the
hungry minds which focussed unanimously upon its almost stern contours.
The deep furrows in the cardboardlike cheeks (furrows which resembled
slightly the gills of some extraordinary fish, some unbreathing fish)
moved not an atom. The moustache drooped in something like mechanical
tranquillity. The lips closed occasionally with a gesture at once
abstracted and sensitive upon the lightly and carefully held cigarette;
whose curling smoke accentuated the poise of the head, at once alert and
uninterested.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243