one April dusk the sallow street-lamps were turning snowy against a west of robin’s egg blue when i entered a mad street whose
mouth dripped with slavver of spring chased two flights of squirrel-stairs into a mid-victorian attic which is known as O ΠΑΡΞΕΝΩΝ and having ordered yaoorti from Nicho’ settled my feet on the
ceiling inhaling six divine inches of Haremina in the thick of the snick- er of cards and smack of back-
gammon boards i was aware of an entirely ***** circle of habitués their faces like cigarettebutts, chewed with disdain, led by a Jumpy
***** who played each card as if it were a thunderbolt red- hot peeling off huge slabs of a fuzzy
language with the aid of an exclamatory tooth-pick And who may that be i said exhaling into
eternity as Nicho’ laid before me bread more downy than street-lamps upon an almostclean
