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“Since your night is ruined, drink!”

Roy and I glanced nervously around the restaurant

No Beast

When the chane was poured, Groc toasted us

“May you never have to curl a dead man’s eyelashes, clean a dead e his syphilitic lips” Groc rose and looked at the door through which his women had run

“Did you see their faces?” Groc sirls are wildly in love

with h lama of the Valley of the Blue Moon Should they depart, a door would slam, mine, and their faces fall I have warned them also that I have hooked fine wires below their chins and eyes Should they run too far too fast to the end of the wire—their flesh would unravel And instead of being thirty, they would be forty-two!”

“Fafner,” growled Roy His fingers clutched the table as if he ht leap up

“What?”

“A friend,” I said “We thought we ht”

“Tonight is over,” said Groc “But stay Finish e me Would you like a salad before the kitchen shuts?”

“I’ry,” said Roy, the wild disappointed Shrine Opera Siegfried look in his eyes

“Yes!” I said

“Two salads,” Groc said to the waiter “Blue cheese dressing?”

Roy shut his eyes “Yes!” I said