Muttering to herself that he always did act peculiar, she left on the Praelector's mission of revenge. He still hadn't got over the Senior Tutor's disgusting behaviour or his language. The Matron would do him good. In any case he wanted to ask this awful gangster with the swollen nose what he and his mob had been doing in the College. 'It's not as though there is anything worth stealing, or we'd have sold it,' he told the Chaplain, who was trying to treat Kudzuvine's suspected concussion or fractured skull with brandy. Kudzuvine wasn't having any. He lay there staring up at the Chaplain in a glazed way.

'Now open your mouth, my dear chap,' said the Chaplain. A little of what you fancy does you good, as dear Marie Lloyd used to say.'

'I don't think he fancies Remy Martin somehow,' said the Praelector, who felt like a drink himself.

'Ray Me who?' muttered Kudzuvine. 'What's happening? What's going on?'

'Nothing is going on. It's just that you've had a little accident and fallen…'

Kudzuvine concentrated hard and remembered. 'You call that a little accident? Being trampled to death by a herd of fucking monks and things? You call that little?'

'It's merely a term of…it's a slight euphemism, an understatement. Nothing to get excited about.'

Kudzuvine glowered. 'Nothing to get excited about? You got to be kidding. And understatement it wasn't. I was the fucking understatement. You ever been trampled to death by a herd of fucking-'

'Yes,' said the Chaplain with surprising authority. As a matter of fact I was lock forward in the scrum, if you know what that means, and I have frequently been trampled on. There's no need to make such a fuss about it. You are obviously an American.'

'I am a citizen of the greatest super-power in the world,' said Kudzuvine. 'That's me. A born and bred natural citizen of the greatest super-power in the whole goddam-world and proud of it you better believe me. We can take on the whole fucking rest of you and whip the hell out of you all no sweat.'

'I seem to remember you did particularly well in Vietnam,' said the Praelector, who had landed in Normandy and hadn't forgotten the platoon being bombed by Flying Fortresses near Falaise. 'A most impressive performance. Brilliant strategy and such excellently disciplined fighting men and generals, but then again you were only up against small men who didn't have any aircraft. I daresay if they'd bombed you as heavily as you bombed them…' He left the comparison for Kudzuvine to work out.

'What the fuck are you talking about? Vietnam? Hell, we didn't stand a chance. Those bastards are so small you can't find them to kill and they breed like flies,'

The Chaplain intervened with a different brandy, this time Hine. 'I'm sure you'll find this to your taste,' he said, only to be told to take the fucking stuff away because he was an American non-alcoholic and teetotaller from Bibliopolis, Alabama, and they'd better believe it.

'Oh, but we do,' said the Praelector. 'Now, if you'll just tell us your name?'

'What for?' Kudzuvine demanded belligerently.

For a moment the Praelector was tempted to say they needed it for his next of kin, but he decided on tact. 'It's just that we want to be friends and-'

'Shit!' said Kudzuvine. 'Trample me to death like I'm a fucking Iraqi or something and you want to be friends? Go fuck yourself.'

'I can see this is going to be difficult,' said the Praelector, who had had a trying day and was sick to death of being insulted.

'What I don't see,' said the Chaplain who had drunk the Hine brandy himself, 'is what Iraqis have to do with being trampled to death.'

'One must suppose it refers to the world's greatest super-power using bulldozers to bury the poor devils alive in their trenches,' the Praelector said, and poured himself a glass of the Remy Martin.

'Goddam right we did. Those bastards didn't know what hit them,' said Kudzuvine.

The look in the eyes of both the Chaplain and the Praelector suggested that something of the same sort might be about to happen to Kudzuvine but, being the man he was, he had no idea it was coming. 'I don't know if you have a good lawyer,' the Praelector said very quietly and very distinctly, 'but I think I should tell you that when the police arrive and you have been charged with aggravated assault, criminal trespass with damage, and that damage deliberately done to a Listed Building of National Importance-'

'Listed Building of National Importance? What the fuck you talking about? Like what?' Kudzuvine shouted and tried to sit up.

'If you want a comparison with something in your own country, might I suggest deliberately causing the destruction of the Unitarian Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Emerson preached. But then perhaps you don't know who Emerson was?'

'Sure I know who Emerson was. Invented the fucking electric light. Emerson!' Kudzuvine practically spat at them.

The Praelector smiled grimly. 'What I'm trying to get you to understand is that, following in the great tradition set by the lawyers and judiciary in your wonderful country, we are going to sue you for the damage you have caused to one of the oldest and most valued college chapels, in Cambridge. Now I don't know what damages and costs we will be awarded but the courts in England are increasingly following the American custom of…'

There was no need to go on. The physical injuries Kudzuvine had suffered had paled into total insignificance. He knew about damages. 'Get me Hartang,' he whimpered. 'I've got to have Hartang.'

'I'm afraid I haven't got any,' said the Chaplain. 'Lapsang Souchong, yes, and Earl Grey, but Hartang no. I can't honestly say I've ever heard of it.'

The Praelector was less sympathetic. 'He's playing the oldest legal trick in the world. Playing dumb and being of unsound mind. Not that it is going to help in the least. He brought whoever those dreadful men were into the College where they did the most monstrous damage and committed criminal trespass. Now what did you say your name was?'

'Kudzuvine,' said Kudzuvine.

'Really? How very interesting. And I suppose your mother's name was Ivy,' said the Praelector. 'Something botanical at any rate, and I daresay you have Swedish ancestry.'

'What the fuck you talking about my mother's name? Botanical? They called her Lily May. And what's with the Swedish shit? Nothing Swede about us. Free-born citizen of the greatest super-'

'Quite so. We've been through the virtues of America before _ad nauseam_ and we don't need them again. What is your real name? And don't come up with Alfalfa or Kentucky Bluegrass or anything Linnaean.'

Kudzuvine tried to get off the bed on the other side. He was clearly terrified. But the Praelector had already left the room.

'What's with the other guy, monk?' he asked the Chaplain. 'He always like this?'

The Chaplain seemed to consider the question seriously. 'I suppose he must be,' he said, 'though now you come to mention it…oh well, never mind. It's probably that time of the month.'

'Time of the month? What's the time of the month got to do with it? Guy thinks he menstruates or something?'

'I think it's mainly something,' the Chaplain answered. 'I'm most sorry about that tea. I do have some China. Are you sure?'

Kudzuvine didn't want tea and having some part of China wasn't doing him any good either. But his main worry was the 'something'. 'What's he do this time of month?' he asked as he tried to move towards the door. 'Turn into a werewolf like Frankenstein? We did a movie once on fucking wolves. They got a real tight social order, you know that?'

'How very interesting,' said the Chaplain, and tripped Kudzuvine up with a walking stick. He was still on the floor when the Praelector returned with the Head Porter and two assistants. He stared at their shoes and dark grey trousers and moaned.