Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/187

 wallowing in the mire of his misanthropy. They always do. So he sat around in his room telling himself how miserable everything was until his digestion deserted him, and then he was really miserable.

The climax came about in a very natural way. He came down to the club for dinner one evening with a loathing for food and human nature. He tried some of the first for duty's sake, but for human nature he had no use, and he sat there with his chin on his shirt bosom and his legs stretched out under the table, thinking how he hated them all. He had a notion to tell them so.

As it was, he went around the table mentally, addressing each one in turn. He did not have to look up. He knew where each one sat and just how each looked, and how Grafton chewed with his lips apart.

"Oh, you huge ass!" he breathed, as Downing began to differ with somebody and to show his reasons for it. "You self-satisfied ass! You think because you won that debate last year that you're just about right, don't you? That's it! give them