SHANNON, Miss Jelkes, you're still not operating on the realistic level. You'd be surprised what people will eat when they're really hungry. They'll eat cold, greasy frijoles at the Casa de Huespedes —they'll even— Why [ remember conducting a party of ladies, yes, ladies—through a country that shall be nameless but in this world— We were passing by rubberneck bus along a tropical coastline when we saw a great mound of— Well, the smell was unpleasant. One of my ladies said, “Oh, Larry, what is it?” My name being Laurence, the most familiar ladies sometimes call me Larry, | didn’t use the four-letter word for what the great mound was. | didn’t think it was necessary to say it. Then she noticed, and I noticed, too, a pair of very old natives of this nameless country, practically naked except for a few filthy rags, creeping and crawling about shis mound of—and—occasionally staoping to pick something out of it, and pop it into their mouths! What? Bits of undigested—food particles, Miss Jelkes. (Sbe makes a Gagging sound in ber throat and rashes the length of the verandah to the wooden steps down it and disappears for 4 while) Dis- gusting? Nothing human disgusts you unless it’s— (Jo himself and the moon.) Now why did I tell her that? Recause it’s true? ‘That’s no reason to tell her, because it’s true. Yeah, Because it's true was a good reason not to tell her. Except'—I think I first faced it in that nameless country. The gradual, rapid, natural, un- natural—predestined, accidental—cracking up and going ta picccs of young Mr, T, Lawrence Shannon, yes, still young Mr. T. Lawrence Shannon, by which rapid—slow process—his final tour of ladies through tropical countries— Why did I say “tropical”? —Hell! Yes!—It’s always been tropical countries I took ladies through. Docs that, does thet—huh?—signify something, I won- der?—Maybe, Fast decay is a thing of hot climates, steamy, hot, wet climates and I run back to them like a—incomplete sentence. . . « Always seducing a lady or two or three or four or five ladies in the party, but really ravaging her first by pointing out to her the—what?—Horrors? Yes, horrors!—of the tropical country be- ing conducted a tour through. . . . Cruelty: pity! Which is it? —don’t know, all I know is—my brain is going out like a f