It is me! Pip-pip! We are first-rate friends!
Ai-ai! Don’t you hear, I can talk your language?
Bus and I, we are kinsfolk, you see;—
Bus shall have sugar to-morrow —! The beast!
The whole cargo on top of me! Ugh, how disgusting!—
Or perhaps it was food? ’Twas in taste — indefinable;
and taste’s for the most part a matter of habit.
What thinker is it who somewhere says:
You must spit and trust to the force of habit?—
Now here come the small-fry!
[Hits and slashes around him.] It’s really too bad
that man, who by rights is the lord of creation,
should find himself forced to —! O murder! murder!
the old one was bad, but the youngsters are worse!