authentic, poised, cohering in a sole chaos of desire; a fluent and
numerous cluster of vital inhumanity. As I contemplated this ferocious
and uncouth miracle, this beautiful manifestation of the sinister alchemy
of hunger, I felt that the last vestige of individualism was about
utterly to disappear, wholly abolished in a gambolling and wallowing
throb.

The beefy-neck bellowed:

"Are you all here?"

A shrill roar of language answered. He looked contemptuously around him,
upon the thirty clamouring faces each of which wanted to eat
him--puttees, revolver and all. Then he cried:

"_Allez, descendez._"

Squirming, jostling, fighting, roaring, we poured slowly through the
doorway. Ridiculously. Horribly. I felt like a glorious microbe in huge
absurd din irrevocably swathed. B. was beside me. A little ahead Monsieur
Auguste's voice protested. Count Bragard brought up the rear.

When we reached the corridor nearly all the breath was knocked out of me.
The corridor being wider than the stairs allowed me to inhale and look
around. B. was yelling in my ear:

"Look at the Hollanders and the Belgians! They're always ahead when it
comes to food!"

Sure enough: John the Bathman, Harree and Pompom were leading this