Pas d'avant les domestiques

Mouse looked at Magus and said: That's a juicy mango, using a slang expression then fashionable in the studios.

At these words, Mr. Bobbit frowned The suburbanite brought in his train another mixture of vegetables in the persons of his wife and daughter. The wife had those two large spots of banana-brown blusher that recall the circus; she was like a pumpkin with a head on top and a belt round the middle. As she swiveled round on her feet to display her black-striped, orange dress her perfume clogged the air. On her pudgy hands she proudly displayed enormous rings like the window of a pawn shop. Green feathers apparently from a stripper at a first-class joint waved in her pineapple hat. Her shoulders, decorated with fur, were as rounded behind as they were in front, and so the spherical shape of the pumpkin was perfect. Her feet, of the kind that recall on old children's rhyme, were embellished by half-inch rolls of fat above the polished leather of her shoes. How did her feet get into them? No one knows.

There followed a young asparagus in a green and yellow dress. She had a little head surmounted by hair parted in the middle, and of a carrot-yellow that a rabbit would have loved, skinny arms, freckles on quite white skin, large innocent eyes with white eyelashes, not much eyebrow, an heroic push-up bra, an innocent girl's chewed fingernails, and her mother's feet. As they looked at the studio, these three beings had a satisfied look that proclaimed a respectable enthusiasm for the arts.

And it's you, Mister, who are going to reproduce our likenesses? said the father putting on a rather jaunty manner.

Yes, Mister, replied Keene.

Duncan, Smythe says our artist friend here has been decorated with the Pixel du Prix, said the wife under her breath to her husband, while the painter had his back turned.

Would I have our portraits painted by an artist who had not received awards? said the former plastics dealer.

Ulysses Magus bowed to the Bobbit family and went out; Keene went with him as far as the landing.

Only you would fish up heads like that.

A quarter mil when she marries plus that yearly allowance.

Yes, but what a family.

All those dollars to look forward to, the Victorian on Nob Hill, and that get-away in Sonoma County.

Synthskin, plastic hearts, designer bacteria, landfills, said the painter. So darn plastic, you'll think it's real, he sang the jingle.

You will be safe from want for the rest of your days, said Ulysses.

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