He pleaded with Matty, the bone man, appealing artfully to his professional pride, for Bonypart loved to feel in exalted moments that his position as the living skeleton was not insignificant after all.
"We can slip on overcoats, trot over to the Bridge Inn, have a drink, and return before the Professor wakes." whispered Nickie.
"I couldn't trust meself near th' counter-lunch.

Nickie.

I couldn't," Mat replied.
But in the end the Missing Link had his way.

Bonypart pulled on trousers and coat over his tawdry tights, Nickie turned back the ingenious head-piece and mask of Mahdi, the man-monkey, so that it hung between his shoulders, donned an overcoat and a pair of the Professor's knee boots, and the two slipped under the tent, and made for Peter's Bridge Inn, on the outskirts of a dusty township.
An hour later the Missing Link and the Living Skeleton were sitting under the pile bridge a mile above the township, with a bottle of whisky between them.

Bonypart was eating bread and cheese with an avidity which demonstrated the abandonment of all professional instincts.