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“A real pleasure this is,” I heard another millicent goloss say as I was tolchocked very rough and skorry into the auto. “Little Alex all to our own selves.” I creeched out:

“I’m blind, Bog bust and bleed you, you grahzny bastards.”

“Language, language,” like smecked a goloss, and then I got a like backhand tolchock with some ringy rooker or other full on the rot. I said:

“Bog murder you, you vonny stinking bratchnies. Where are the others? Where are my stinking traitorous droogs? One of my cursed grahzny bratties chained me on the glazzies. Get them before they get away. It was all their idea, brothers. They like forced me to do it. I’m innocent, Bog butcher you.”

By this time they were all having like a good smeck at me with the heighth of like callousness, and they’d tolchocked me into the back of the auto, but I still kept on about these so-called droogs of mine and then I viddied it would be no good, because they’d all be back now in the snug of the Duke of New York forcing black and suds and double Scotchmen down the unprotesting gorloes of those stinking starry ptitsas and they saying: “Thanks, lads. God bless you, boys. Been here all the time you have, lads. Not been out of our sight you haven’t.”

All the time we were sirening off to the rozz-shop, me being wedged between two millicents and being given the odd thump and malenky tolchock by these smecking bullies. Then I found I could open up my glazlids a malenky bit and viddy like through all tears a kind of steamy city going by, all the lights like having run into one another. I could viddy now through smarting glazzies these two smecking millicents at the back with me and the thin-necked driver and the fat-necked bastard next to him, this one having a sarky like govoreet at me, saying: “Well, Alex boy, we all look forward to a pleasant evening together, don’t we not?” I said:

“How do you know my name, you stinking vonny bully? May Bog blast you to hell, grahzny bratchny as you are, you sod.” So they all had a smeck at that and I had my ooko like twisted by one of these stinking millicents at the back with me. The fat-necked not-driver said:

“Everybody knows little Alex and his droogs. Quite a famous young boy our Alex has become.”

“It’s those others,” I creeched. “Georgie and Dim and Pete. No droogs of mine, the bastards.”

“Well,” said the fat-neck, “you’ve got the evening in front of you to tell the whole story of the daring exploits of those young gentlemen and how they led poor little innocent Alex astray.” Then there was the shoom of another like police siren passing this auto but going the other way.

“Is that for those bastards?” I said. “Are they being picked up by you bastards?”

“That,” said fat-neck, “is an ambulance. Doubtless for your old lady victim, you ghastly wretched scoundrel.”

“It was all their fault,” I creeched, blinking my smarting glazzies. “The bastards will be peeting away in the Duke of New York. Pick them up blast you, you vonny sods.” And then there was more smecking and another malenky tolchock, O my brothers, on my poor smarting rot. And then we arrived at the stinking rozz-shop and they helped me get out of the auto with kicks and pulls and they tolchocked me up the steps and I knew I was going to get nothing like fair play from these stinky grahzny bratchnies, Bog blast them.

7

They dragged me into this very bright-lit whitewashed cantora, and it had a strong von that was a mixture of like sick and lavatories and beery rots and disinfectant, all coming from the barry places near by. You could hear some of the plennies in their cells cursing and singing and I fancied I could slooshy one belting out:

‘And I will go back to my darling, my darling,
When you, my darling, are gone.’

But there were the golosses of millicents telling them to shut it and you could even slooshy the zvook of like somebody being tolchocked real horrorshow and going owwwwwwwww, and it was like the goloss of a drunken starry ptitsa, not a man. With me in this cantora were four millicents, all having a good loud peet of chai, a big pot of it being on the table and they sucking and belching away over their dirty bolshy mugs. They didn’t offer me any. All that they gave me, my brothers, was a crappy starry mirror to look into, and indeed I was not your handsome young Narrator any longer but a real strack of a sight, my rot swollen and my glazzies all red and my nose bumped a bit also. They all had a real horrorshow smeck when they viddied my like dismay, and one of them said: “Love’s young nightmare like.” And then a top millicent came in with like stars on his pletchoes to show he was high high high, and he viddied me and said: “Hm.” So then they started. I said:

“I won’t say one single solitary slovo unless I have my lawyer here. I know the law, you bastards.” Of course they all had a good gromky smeck at that and then the stellar top millicent said:

“Righty right, boys, we’ll start off by showing him that we know the law, too, but that knowing the law isn’t everything.” He had a like gentleman’s goloss and spoke in a very weary sort of a way, and he nodded with a like droogy smile at one very big fat bastard. This big fat bastard took off his tunic and you could viddy he had a real big starry pot on him, then he came up to me not too skorry and I could get the von of the milky chai he’d been peeting when he opened his rot in a like very tired leery grin at me. He was not too well shaved for a rozz and you could viddy like patches of dried sweat on his shirt under the arms, and you could get this von of like earwax from him as he came close. Then he clenched his stinking red rooker and let me have it right in the belly, which was unfair, and all the other millicents smecked their gullivers off at that, except the top one and he kept on with this weary like bored grin. I had to lean against the white-washed wall so that all the white got on to my platties, trying to drag the old breath back and in great agony, and then I wanted to sick up the gluey pie I’d had before the start of the evening. But I couldn’t stand that sort of veshch, sicking all over the floor, so I held it back. Then I saw that this fatty bruiseboy was turning to his millicent droogs to have a real horrorshow smeck at what he’d done, so I raised my right noga and before they could creech at him to watch out I’d kicked him smart and lovely on the shin. And he creeched murder, hopping around.

But after that they all had a turn, bouncing me from one to the other like some very weary bloody ball, O my brothers, and fisting me in the yarbles and the rot and the belly and dealing out kicks, and then at last I had to sick up on the floor and, like some real bezoomny veck, I evan said: “Sorry, brothers, that was not the right thing at all. Sorry sorry sorry.” But they handed me starry bits of gazetta and made me wipe it, and then they made me make with the sawdust. And then they said, almost like dear old droogs, that I was to sit down and we’d all have a quiet like govoreet. And then P. R. Deltoid came in to have a viddy, his office being in the same building, looking very tired and grahzny, to say: “So it’s happened, Alex boy, yes? Just as I thought it would. Dear dear dear, yes.”

Then he turned to the millicents to say: “Evening, inspector. Evening, sergeant. Evening, evening, all. Well, this is the end of the line for me, yes. Dear dear, this boy does look messy, doesn’t he? Just look at the state of him.”

“Violence makes violence,” said the top millicent in a very holy type goloss. “He resisted his lawful arresters.”

“End of the line, yes,” said P. R. Deltoid again. He looked at me with very cold glazzies like I had become a thing and was no more a bleeding very tired battered chelloveck. “I suppose I’ll have to be in court tomorrow.”