And if you'd seen the intent look on the
faces of these boys, and the way they darted in the filth when a coin
was flung--really, no vulture or jackal could dream of approaching
them, for foulness. I NEVER would go on a pleasure boat again--never.'
Gerald watched her all the time she spoke, his eyes glittering with
faint rousedness. It was not so much what she said; it was she herself
who roused him, roused him with a small, vivid pricking.
'Of course,' he said, 'every civilised body is bound to have its
vermin.'
'Why?' cried Ursula. 'I don't have vermin.'
'And it's not that--it's the QUALITY of the whole thing--paterfamilias
laughing and thinking it sport, and throwing the ha'pennies, and
materfamilias spreading her fat little knees and eating, continually
eating--' replied Gudrun.
'Yes,' said Ursula. 'It isn't the boys so much who are vermin; it's the
people themselves, the whole body politic, as you call it.'
Gerald laughed.
'Never mind,' he said. 'You shan't go on the launch.
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