“Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want.” Here he brightened up; “I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right; I have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study zoöphagy!”

This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on:⁠—

“Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose?” He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority.