drinks, eskimo pies, ice-cream cones: all the delights of the greatest of American amusement parks.
Campaspe clapped her hands. It's superb! she cried. Just what I imagined. I'll never have to see anything again. It's all of life and most of death: sordid splendour with a touch of immortality and middle-class ecstasy. This is Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Thomas Hardy, and Max Beerbohm, and Bret Harte, and even James Joyce. It's a parable; it's an allegory; it's the pagan idea of heaven, and the Christian conception of hell. It burns and it freezes. It is clamour and it is silence. It is both home and the house of prostitution. It is what you want and what you want to escape. It is—she turned to Harold—complete experience. It is your education.
Harold was dazzled by her enthusiasm, but he certainly had no idea what she was talking about.
What shall we do first? asked Paul, rather languidly. They had descended from the motor and were walking along the beach.
I'm hungry, struck up Bunny.
Get Bunny a hot dog, suggested John Armstrong.
I could eat a smoked Pom, was Bunny's riposte.
Presently, they were all munching sausages laid in between two strips of bun, larded with mustard.
Buy me a balloon and a kewpie, John, cried the ravished Campaspe. Can you find me a geranium balloon? . . . No, they're all off-colour. I'll take a blue one. Harold, come here! Stay with me
