men; and the miraculous stupidity of the _plantons_ had been known to
result in the coincidence of the two.

At this point somebody asked me how I had enjoyed my shower?

I was replying in terms of unmeasured opprobrium when I was interrupted
by that gruesome clanking and rattling which announced the opening of the
door. A moment later it was thrown wide, and the beefy-neck stood in the
doorway, a huge bunch of keys in his paw, and shouted:

"_A la soupe les hommes._"

The cry was lost in a tremendous confusion, a reckless
thither-and-hithering of humanity, everyone trying to be at the door,
spoon in hand, before his neighbour. B. said calmly, extracting his own
spoon from beneath his mattress on which we were seated: "They'll give
you yours downstairs and when you get it you want to hide it or it'll be
pinched"--and in company with Monsieur Bragard, who had refused the
morning promenade, and whose gentility would not permit him to hurry when
it was a question of such a low craving as hunger, we joined the dancing
roaring throng at the door. I was not too famished myself to be
unimpressed by the instantaneous change which had come over The Enormous
Room's occupants. Never did Circe herself cast upon men so bestial an
enchantment. Among these faces convulsed with utter animalism I scarcely
recognised my various acquaintances. The transformation produced by the
_planton's_ shout was not merely amazing; it was uncanny, and not a
little thrilling. These eyes bubbling with lust, obscene grins sprouting
from contorted lips, bodies unclenching and clenching in unctuous
gestures of complete savagery, convinced me by a certain insane beauty.
Before the arbiter of their destinies some thirty creatures, hideous and