Chapter V
One after another, they engaged themselves in the revolving doors of the restaurant, trotted round in the moving cage of glass and ejected themselves into the coolness and darkness of the street. Shearwater lifted up his large face and took two or three deep breaths. “Too much carbon dioxide and ammonia in there,” he said.
“It is unfortunate that when two or three are gathered together in God’s name, or even in the more civilized name of Mercaptan of the delicious middle,” Mercaptan dexterously parried the prod which Coleman aimed at him, “it is altogether deplorable that they should necessarily empest the air.”
Lypiatt had turned his eyes heavenwards. “What stars,” he said, “and what prodigious gaps between the stars!”
“A real light opera summer night.” And Mercaptan began t
