“Oh Lord, yes. Soon after you went. It was no place for me. Manners, O.S.B., gave me the push pretty quick. And I don’t blame him. Well, what are you doing? Have a drink? Or have you got to meet your best girl? My, you’ve grown since I saw you last. Quite the Johnny nowadays. But I spotted you all right. Something about your eyes that would be very hard to forget.” Michael thought that if it came to unforgettable eyes, the eyes of Mr. Meats would stand as much chance of perpetual remembrance as any, since their unholy light would surely set any heart beating with the breathless imagination of sheer wickedness. “Yes, I have got funny eyes, haven’t I?” said Meats in complacent realization of Michael’s thoughts. And as he spoke he seemed consciously to exercise their vile charm, so that his irises kindled slowly with lambent blue flames. “Come on, let’s have this drink,” urged Meats, and he led the way to a scattered group of green tables. They sat down, and Michael ordered a lemon-squash. “Very good drink too,” commented Meats. “I think I’ll have the same, Rosie,” he said to the girl who served them. “Do you know that girl?” Michael asked. “Used to. About three years ago. She’s gone oil though,” said Meats indifferently. Michael, to hide his astonishment at the contemptuous suggestion of damaged goods, enquired what Meats had been doing since he left the Monastery. “Want to know?” asked Meats. Michael assured him that he did. “You’re rather interested in me, aren’t you? Well, I can tell you a few things and that’s a fact. I don’t suppose that there’s anybody in London who could tell you more. But you might be shocked.” “Oh, shut up!” scoffed Michael, blushing with indignation. Then began the shameless narration of the late Brother Aloysius, whom various attainments had enabled to gain an equal profit from religion and vice. Sometimes as Michael listened to the adventures he was reminded of Benvenuto Cellini or Casanova, but almost immediately the comparison would be shattered by a sudden sanctimonious blasphemy which he found nauseating. Moreover, he disliked the sly procurer that continually leered through the man’s personality. “You seem to have done a lot of dirty work for other people,” Michael bluntly observed at last.