This Caterwauling

This caterwauling, all this yammering and yowling, such a damnable nuisance and bother; if I could only deafen myself to the sirens that play havoc in my head, thought the man in the hat, a pillow feather cuckolding his jaw, but as I can’t, I must put up with this murder of noise. He connived himself into thinking about jammy jam and pot-glue, child’s paste made from flour and water, and his mother’s flea-bitten face, eyes sallow and indifferent, teeth clacking one against the other. His father abhorred his mother’s mastication, teeth like chisels chipping away at bone and gristle, hock and shoulder, bridge-mixture and licorice allsorts, Melbas and wheat thins, tallow biscuits chouse with compote and aspic.