The nod was courteous, the smile full of satire.

The fat ambassador returned.
"Right-oh," he puffed, tugging from the baize cover a shining pair of bell-hilted swords.

"Here, try 'em out." His puffy eyes turned furtively toward Rudolph.

"May be bad form, Hackh, but--we all wish you luck, I fancy." Then, in a burst of candor, "Wish that unspeakable ass felt as seedy as I do--heat-stroke--drop dead--that sort of thing." Still grumbling treason, this strange second rejoined his principal.
"Jackets off," commanded Heywood; and in their cinglets, each with sword under arm, the two friends took shelter behind a ragged clump of plantains.

The yellow leaves, half dead with drought and blight, hung ponderous as torn strips of sheet metal in the lifeless air.
Behind this tattered screen, Rudolph studied, for a moment, the lethal object in his hand.