“Don’t let him go. We’ll teach him all about punishment, the murderous young pig. Get him.” And, believe it, brothers, or do the other veshch, two or three starry dodderers, about ninety years old apiece, grabbed me with their trembly old rookers, and I was like made sick by the von of old age and disease which came from these near-dead moodges. The crystal veck was on to me now, starting to deal me malenky weak tolchocks on my litso, and I tried to get away and itty out, but these starry rookers that held me were stronger than I had thought. Then other starry vecks came hobbling from the gazettas to have a go at Your Humble Narrator. They were creeching veshches like: “Kill him, stamp on him, murder him, kick his teeth in,” and all that cal, and I could viddy what it was clear enough. It was old age having a go at youth, that’s what it was. But some of them were saying: “Poor old Jack, near killed poor old Jack he did, this is the young swine” and so on, as though it had all happened yesterday. Which to them I suppose it had. There was now like a sea of vonny runny dirty old men trying to get at me with their like feeble rookers and horny old claws, creeching and panting on to me, but our crystal droog was there in front, dealing out tolchock after tolchock. And I daren’t do a solitary single veshch, O my brothers, it being better to be hit at like that than to want to sick and feel that horrible pain, but of course the fact that there was violence going on made me feel that the sickness was peeping round the corner to viddy whether to come out into the open and roar away.

Then an attendant veck came along, a youngish veck, and he creeched: “What goes on here? Stop it at once. This is a reading room.” But nobody took any notice. So the attendant veck said: “Right, I shall phone the police.” So I creeched, and I never thought I would ever do that in all my jeezny:

“Yes yes yes, do that, protect me from these old madmen.” I noticed that the attendant veck was not too anxious to join in the dratsing and rescue me from the rage and madness of these starry vecks’ claws; he just scatted off to his like office or wherever the telephone was. Now these old men were panting a lot now, and I felt I could just flick at them and they would all fall over, but I just let myself be held, very patient, by these starry rookers, my glazzies closed, and feel the feeble tolchocks on my litso, also slooshy the panting breathy old golosses creeching: “Young swine, young murderer, hooligan, thug, kill him.” Then I got such a real painful tolchock on the nose that I said to myself to hell to hell, and I opened my glazzies up and started to struggle to get free, which was not hard, brothers, and I tore off creeching to the sort of hallway outside the reading-room. But these starry avengers still came after me, panting like dying, with their animal claws all trembling to get at your friend and Humble Narrator. Then I was tripped up and was on the floor and was being kicked at, then I slooshied golosses of young vecks creeching: “All right, all right, stop it now,” and I knew the police had arrived.

3

I was like dazed, O my brothers, and could not viddy very clear, but I was sure I had met these millicents some mesto before. The one who had hold of me, going: “There there there,” just by the front door of the Public Biblio, him I did not know at all, but it seemed to me he was like very young to be a rozz. But the other two had backs that I was sure I had viddied before. They were lashing into these starry old vecks with great bolshy glee and joy, swishing away with malenky whips, creeching: “There, you naughty boys. That should teach you to stop rioting and breaking the State’s Peace, you wicked villains, you.” So they drove these panting and wheezing and near dying starry avengers back into the reading-room, then they turned round, smecking with the fun they’d had, to viddy me. The older one of the two said:

“Well well well well well well well. If it isn’t little Alex. Very long time no viddy, droog. How goes?” I was like dazed, the uniform and the shlem or helmet making it hard to viddy who this was, though litso and goloss were very familiar. Then I looked at the other one, and about him, with his grinning bezoomny litso, there was no doubt. Then, all numb and growing number, I looked back at the well well welling one. This one was then fatty old Billyboy, my old enemy. The other was, of course, Dim, who had used to be my droog and also the enemy of stinking fatty goaty Billyboy, but was now a millicent with uniform and shlem and whip to keep order. I said:

“Oh no.”

“Surprise, eh?” And old Dim came out with the old guff I remembered so horrorshow: “Huh huh huh.”

“It’s impossible,” I said. “It can’t be so. I don’t believe it.”

“Evidence of the old glazzies,” grinned Billyboy. “Nothing up our sleeves. No magic, droog. A job for two who are now of job-age. The police.”

“You’re too young,” I said. “Much too young. They don’t make rozzes of malchicks of your age.”

“Was young,” went old millicent Dim. I could not get over it, brothers, I really could not. “That’s what we was, young droogie. And you it was that was always the youngest. And here now we are.”

“I still can’t believe it,” I said. Then Billyboy, rozz Billyboy that I couldn’t get over, said to this young millicent that was like holding on to me and that I did not know:

“More good would be done, I think, Rex, if we doled out a bit of the old summary. Boys will be boys, as always was. No need to go through the old station routine. This one here has been up to his old tricks, as we can well remember though you, of course, can’t. He has been attacking the aged and defenceless, and they have properly been retaliating. But we must have our say in the State’s name.”

“What is all this?” I said, not able hardly to believe my ookos. “It was them that went for me, brothers. You’re not on their side and can’t be. You can’t be, Dim. It was a veck we fillied with once in the old days trying to get his own malenky bit of revenge after all this long time.”

“Long time is right,” said Dim. “I don’t remember them days too horrorshow. Don’t call me Dim no more, either. Officer call me.”

“Enough is remembered, though,” Billyboy kept nodding. He was not so fatty as he had been. “Naughty little malchicks handy with cut-throat britvas—these must be kept under.” And they took me in a real strong grip and like walked me out of the Biblio. There was a millicent patrol-car waiting outside, and this veck they called Rex was the driver. They like tolchocked me into the back of this auto, and I couldn’t help feeling it was all really like a joke, and that Dim anyway would pull his shlem off his gulliver and go haw haw haw. But he didn’t. I said, trying to fight the strack inside me:

“And old Pete, what happened to old Pete? It was sad about Georgie,” I said. “I slooshied all about that.”

“Pete, oh yes, Pete,” said Dim. “I seem to remember like the name.” I could viddy we were driving out of town. I said:

“Where are we supposed to be going?”

Billyboy turned round from the front to say: “It’s light still. A little drive into the country, all winter-bare but lonely and lovely. It is not right, not always, for lewdies in the town to viddy too much of our summary punishments. Streets must be kept clean in more than one way.” And he turned to the front again.

“Come,” I said. “I just don’t get this at all. The old days are dead and gone days. For what I did in the past I have been punished. I have been cured.”

“That was read out to us,” said Dim. “The Super read all that out to us. He said it was a very good way.”

“Read to you,” I said, a malenky bit nasty. “You still too dim to read for yourself, O brother?”

“Ah, no,” said Dim, very like gentle and like regretful. “Not to speak like that. Not no more, droogie.” And he launched a bolshy tolchock right on my cluve, so that all red red nose-krovvy started to drip drip drip.