Worried, all right. By the jaws and teeth of some Creature, some Presence so large that nobody else can see it—there! that’s that monster I was telling you about.—That’s no monster, stupid, that’s clouds!—No, can’t you see? It’s his feet— Well, Slothrop can feel this beast in the sky: its visible claws and scales are being mistaken for clouds and other plausibilities . . . or else everyone has agreed to call them other names when Slothrop is listening. . . . “It’s only a ‘wild coincidence,’ Slothrop.” He will learn to hear quote marks in the speech of others. It is a bookish kind of reflex,
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