In Which the Cosmopolitan is Accosted By a Mystic, Whereupon Ensues Pretty Much Such Talk as Might Be Expected
- After Charlie heads out, a man who we'll just call the Puritan for now sidles up to Frank and goes, I don't trust that guy.
- Frank isn't into the trash-talking, but he invites the Puritan to finish up the wine with him.
- The Puritan accepts and looks Frank over. He tells Frank he is beautiful and must also have a beautiful soul.
- Frank riffs on the idea that outward and inner beauty match and argues that the rattlesnake must have some good in it because it's so pretty.
- Two creepy descriptions are offered up by our narrator: 1) Frank seems to embody beautiful snakeness here; and 2) the Puritan asks him if he ever wonders what it be like to be a snake. You know, free and allowed to kill whatever. Yikes.
- Frank: Nah.
- The Puritan: Bet you kind of want to now, though, huh?
- Frank: Nah. I like people, and no offense to the snake, but if I were one, then people wouldn't want to hang out with me. Sad.
- The dudes talk about the rattler some more. The Puritan makes a victim-blame-y comment about how people who get bitten by rattlesnakes deserve it because they should know better, what with the rattling warning and all. Frank doesn't agree.
- The dudes sit down to drink, and Frank asks why the Puritan said he doesn't trust Charlie.
- It takes the Puritan fo-re-ver to get to the point because his answers are all semi-riddling riffs on this: Can anyone really trust anyone? Who is who? What is the what?
- At one point, the Puritan gives Frank a reason. Charlie, according to the Puritan, is what the Egyptians call "—." Yeah, that's not a typo. Melville really does just give us a blank line. It's kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure moment.
- Since the Puritan doesn't drink wine, ice water is brought out.
- Frank still tries to get a straight answer from the Puritan when a very poor man with some sort of mental illness walks by. He's offering to sing people songs that he's written.
- Frank buys one of the pamphlets the poor man's got with the lyrics, but tells the poor man he'll read it later and that he doesn't need to sing for them.
- The Puritan gives the poor man a death-glare. This scares the poor man away.
- Frank asks the Puritan what his problem is.
- The Puritan thinks the poor man is a fake with just enough sense to pretend to be mentally ill. For proof, the Puritan relies on the fact that he could scare the poor man off.
- Frank asks about the Puritan's distrust of Charlie again and demands there be no more mad libs. He just wants a reason in plain English.
- The Puritan: Charlie's a Mississippi operator.
- The guys have different views of what this term means, but the Puritan ultimately just reiterates that Charlie is untrustworthy.
- Frank: Let's just change the subject.