My tongue is out of office [1]

We went yesterday to Baxter's Pub across the street from the prison, for a Bureau drink. Again I drank a Coke in your honour, but the toast festered undelivered in my grubby fist, because the spirit did not move the assembled company. The establishment was empty but for us and the bartender, who craned his head to see the television suspended above him. He was incapable of smile and scowl alike. A lone cop kept checking his reflection in his shone shoes. I kept my feet in a nest beneath me. I was wearing my harlequin socks and waiting for someone to split the table. I decided that Baxter had lived under the jurisdiction of an eclipse. I ate the ice off the bottom of the Coke. I considered the stampede in my fist.

Peel open my fist, I said, and I'll waylay you with a story. It will be unhurried like a jar of molasses in a fair tide. We'll dwell on something invisible to the newsman's eye. We'll hold at bay anything a newsman might fancy. If we slow down enough, we'll deceive the party whom we pursue, and that party will finally get some shut-eye.

[1] The Revenger's Tragedy