Monsieur Doctor Celine had a boot-lock put on the tyre of his Citroen for driving handless, blindfolded and with one foot, sans sabot or stocking. He asked Henry for a loaner, $5 for a latchkey and some machinist’s oil, the sort used for thievery and jacking, and a baguette, sour-dough with anise and chokecherry, and a pat of garlic butter peppered with poppy seeds. When the constabulary pulled him over, Monsieur Doctor Celine exclaimed, ‘have you read Aquinas, you damn fools?’ The tubbier of the two constables said, ‘please raise your hands so I can see them, sir, and remove the blindfold’. Monsieur Doctor Celine raised his hands over his head but refused to remove the blindfold, as he had seen enough nonsense in his life, and furthermore, disliked imbeciles and tubby constabulary. Once the tyre was booted and marked with yellow chalk, the sort used by geometrists and schoolboys, Monsieur Doctor Celine removed the blindfold, his left shoe, which was untied, and said, ‘have you read Aquinas, you damn fools?’ That evening he, Henry, who arrived in a hansom cab with June and a small lapdog with a flea collar, and the tubbier of the two constables, supped on baguette, sour dough with anise fennel and cranberries, as there were no chokecherries to be found, and Henry despised poppy seeds, and tried to jimmy the boot-lock off the tyre with a thief’s shim, a latchkey and the dog’s collar.
