“Would you have been a general if you had not lied?”
“If I had lied as others lied, I would have been a three-star general.”
“Would it make you happier to be a three-star general?”
“No,” said the Colonel. “It would not.”
“Put your right hand, your real hand, in your pocket once and tell me how you feel.”
The Colonel did so.
“Wonderful,” he said. “But I have to give them back you know.”
“No. Please no.”
“We won’t go into it now.”
Just then the lobster was served.
It was tender, with the peculiar slippery grace of that kicking muscle which is the tail, and the claws were excellent; neither too thin, nor too fat.
“A lobster fills with the moon,” the Colonel told the girl. “When the moon is dark he is not worth eating.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I think it may be because, with the full moon, he feeds all night. Or maybe it is that the full moon brings him feed.”
“They come from the Dalmatian coast do they not?”
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “That’s your rich coast in fish. Maybe I should say our rich coast.”
“Say it,” the girl said. “You don’t know how important things that are said are.”
“They are a damn sight more important when you put them on paper.”
