With a laugh he replied, ‘Not much! Flies are poor things, after all!’ After a pause he added, ‘But I don’t want their souls buzzing round me, all the same.’ ‘Or spiders?’ I went on.
‘Blow spiders! What’s the use of spiders? There isn’t anything in them to eat or …’ He stopped suddenly as though reminded of a f*******n topic.
‘So, so!’ I thought to myself, ‘this is the second time he has suddenly stopped at the word ‘drink’. What does it mean?’ Renfield seemed himself aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract my attention from it, ‘I don’t take any stock at all in such matters. ‘Rats and mice and such small deer,’ as Shakespeare has it, ‘chicken feed of the larder’ they might be called. I’m past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat mo
