A kazoo stops playing. “Wart waffles!” Gustav screams.

“Puke pancakes, with sweat syrup,” adds André Omnopon, as Gustav resumes playing, the Outer Voices meantime having broken off in confusion.

“And spread with pinworm preserves,” murmurs the cellist, who is not above a bit of fun.

“Hemorrhoid hash,” Connie banging her spoon in delight, “bowel burgers!”

Frau Utgarthaloki jumps to her feet, upsetting a platter of stuffed sores—beg pardon, no they’re deviled eggs—and runs from the room, sobbing tragically. Her suave metal husband also rises and follows, casting back at the troublemakers virile stares that promise certain death. A discreet smell of vomit has begun to rise through the hanging tablecloth. Nervous laughter has long embrittled to badmouth whispering.

“A choice of gangrene goulash, or some scrumptious creamy-white leprosy loaf,” Bodine in a light singsong “le-pro-sy [down a third to] loaf,” playfully hounding the holdouts, shaking a finger, c’mon ya little rascals, vomit for the nice zootster….

“Fungus fricassee!” screams Roger the Rowdy. Jessica is weeping on the arm of Jeremy her gentleman, who is escorting her, stiff-armed, shaking his head at Roger’s folly, away forever. Does Roger have a second of pain right here? Yes. Sure. You would too. You might even question the worth of your cause. But there are nosepick noodles to be served up buttery and steaming, grime gruel and pustule porridge to be ladled into the bowls of a sniveling generation of future executives, pubic popovers to be wheeled out onto the terraces stained by holocaust sky or growing rigid with autumn.

“Carbuncle cutlets!”

“With groin gravy!”

“And ringworm relish!”

Lady Mnemosyne Gloobe is having a seizure of some kind, so violent that her pearls break and go rattling down the silk tablecloth. A general loss of appetite reigns, not to mention overt nausea. The flames in the pit have dwindled. No fat to feed them tonight. Sir Hannibal Grunt-Gobbinette is threatening, between spasms of yellow bile foaming out his nose, to bring the matter up in Parliament. “I’ll see you two in the Scrubs if it kills me!” Well…

A gentle, precarious soft-shoe out the door, Bodine waving his widebrim gangster hat. Ta-ta, foax. The only guest still seated is Constance Flamp, who is still roaring out dessert possibilities: “Crotch custard! Phlegm fudge! Mold muffins!” Will she catch hell tomorrow. Pools of this and that glitter across the floor like water-mirages at the Sixth Antechamber to the Throne. Gustav and the rest of the quartet have abandoned Haydn and are all following Roger and Bodine out the door, kazoos and strings accompanying the Disgusting Duo:

Oh gimme some o’ that acne, à-la-mode,

Eat so much-that Ah, jes’ ex-plode!

Say there buddih you can chow all nite, on

Toe-jam tarts ’n’ Diarrhea Dee-lite….

“I have to tell you,” Gustav whispering speedily, “I feel so awful about it, but perhaps you don’t want people like me. You see… I was a Storm Trooper. A long time ago. You know, like Horst Wessel.”