"No.... Thank you."
There was an expression on his countenance which disarmed me of my
wrath. At close range I searched his features. They were irregular,
undecided. His nose was pug--another satyr touch--and his neck long,
thin and ridged. I could not see his eyes. But something about him came
out to me as an appeasing and soothing agent. Worse than useless for me
to speculate as to what it was. A nameless something, probably, which
acted upon my spirit, or nature, and charmed it in a way. I knew this
thing before me was a fragment, a waif, a bit of flotsam on Life's sea.
He could be nothing else. And yet--and yet, as he stood patiently with
that enormous bottle stuck under my nose, and the genial, whole-hearted
leer of invitation on his pagan face, I knew a sudden kinship; a quick,
sympathetic rush of feeling, and as I waved the bottle aside with my
left hand I thrust out my right and grasped his as it hung limply in
front of the bundle he still pressed to his side with his elbow.
"I don't want your liquor, Satyr," I said; "but you may sit down and
talk to me if you want to."
"Don't want good liquor?" he repeated, batting his lids, and lowering
the bottle as though puzzled beyond understanding.
"Not now; not often. Sometimes I do. But what sort of stuff is that?"