“Oh, you’ve recovered consciousness.”

That was like a big rotful for a malenky ptitsa like her, and I tried to say so, but the slovos came out only like er er er. She ittied off and left me on my oddy knocky, and I could viddy now that I was in a malenky room of my own, not in one of these long wards like I had been in as a very little malchick, full of coughing dying starry vecks all around to make you want to get well and fit again. It had been like diphtheria I had had then, O my brothers.

It was like now as though I could not hold to being conscious all that long, because I was like asleep again almost right away, very skorry, but in a minoota or two I was sure that this nurse ptitsa had come back and had brought chellovecks in white coats with her and they were viddying me very frowning and going hm hm hm at Your Humble Narrator. And with them I was sure there was the old charles from the Staja govoreeting: “Oh my son, my son,” breathing a like very stale von of whisky on to me and then saying: “But I would not stay, oh no. I could not in no wise subscribe to what those bratchnies are going to do to other poor prestoopnicks. O I got out and am preaching sermons now about it all, my little beloved son in J. C.”

I woke up again later on and who should I viddy there round the bed but the three from whose flat I had jumped out, namely D. B. da Silva and Something Something Rubinstein and Z. Dolin. “Friend,” one of these vecks was saying, but I could not viddy, or slooshy horrorshow which one, “friend, little friend,” this goloss was saying, “the people are on fire with indignation. You have killed those horrible boastful villains’ chances of re-election. They will go and will go for ever and ever. You have served Liberty well.” I tried to say:

“If I had died it would have been even better for you political bratchnies, would it not, pretending and treacherous droogs as you are.” But all that came out was er er er. Then one of these three seemed to hold out a lot of bits cut from gazettas and what I could viddy was a horrible picture of me all krovvy on a stretcher being carried off and I seemed to like remember a kind of a popping of lights which must have been photographer vecks. Out of one glazz I could read like headlines which were sort of trembling in the rooker of the chelloveck that held them, like BOY VICTIM OF CRIMINAL REFORM SCHEME and GOVERNMENT AS MURDERER and there was like a picture of a veck that looked familiar to me and it said OUT OUT OUT, and that would be the Minister of the Inferior or Interior. Then the nurse ptitsa said:

“You shouldn’t be exciting him like that. You shouldn’t be doing anything that will make him upset. Now come on, let’s have you out.” I tried to say:

“Out out out,” but it was er er er again. Anyway, these three political vecks went. And I went, too, only back to the land, back to all blackness lit up by like odd dreams which I didn’t know whether they were dreams or not, O my brothers. Like for instance I had this idea of my whole plott or body being like emptied of as it might be dirty water and then filled up again with clean. And then there were really lovely and horrorshow dreams of being in some veck’s auto that had been crasted by me and driving up and down the world all on my oddy knocky running lewdies down and hearing them creech they were dying, and in me no pain and no sickness. And also there were dreams of doing the old in-out in-out with devotchkas, forcing like them down on the ground and making them have it and everybody standing around claping their rookers and cheering like bezoomny. And then I woke up again and it was my pee and em come to viddy their ill son, my em boohooing real horrorshow. I could govoreet a lot better now and could say: “Well well well well well, what gives? What makes you think you are like welcome?” My papapa said, in a like ashamed way:

“You were in the papers, son. It said they had done great wrong to you. It said how the Government drove you to try and do yourself in. And it was our fault too, in a way, son. Your home’s your home, when all’s said and done, son.” And my mum kept on going boohoohoo and looking ugly as kiss-my-sharries. So I said:

“And how beeth the new son Joe? Well and healthy and prosperous, I trust and pray?” My mum said:

“Oh, Alex Alex. Owwwwwwww.” My papapa said:

“A very awkward thing, son. He got into a bit of trouble with the police and was done by the police.”

“Really?” I said. “Really? Such a good sort of chelloveck and all. Amazed proper I am, honest.”

“Minding his own business he was,” said my pee. “And the police told him to move on. Waiting at a corner he was, son, to see a girl he was going to meet. And they told him to move on and he said he had rights like everybody else, and then they sort of fell on top of him and hit him about cruel.”

“Terrible,” I said. “Really terrible. And where is the poor boy now?”

“Owwwww,” boohooed my mum. “Gone back owwwwwwme.”

“Yes,” said dad. “He’s gone back to his own home town to get better. They’ve had to give his job here to somebody else.”

“So now,” I said, “You’re willing for me to move back in again and things be like they were before.”

“Yes, son,” said my papapa. “Please, son.”

“I’ll consider it,” I said. “I’ll think about it real careful.”

“Owwwww,” went my mum.

“Ah, shut it,” I said, “or I’ll give you something proper to yowl and creech about. Kick your zoobies in I will.” And, O my brothers, saying that made me feel a malenky bit better, as if all like fresh red red krovvy was flowing all through my plott. That was something I had to think about. It was like as though to get better I had had to get worse.

“That’s no way to speak to your mother, son,” said my papapa. “After all, she brought you into the world.”

“Yes,” I said. “And a right grahzny vonny world too.” I shut my glazzies tight in like pain and said: “Go away now. I’ll think about coming back. But things will have to be very different.”

“Yes, son,” said my pee. “Anything you say.”

“You’ll have to make up your mind,” I said, “who’s to be boss.”

“Owwwwww,” my mum went on.

“Very good, son,” said my papapa. “Things will be as you like. Only get well.”

When they had gone I laid and thought a bit about different veshches, like all different pictures passing through my gulliver, and when the nurse ptitsa came back in and like straightened the sheets on the bed I said to her:

“How long is it I’ve been in here?”

“A week or so,” she said.

“And what have they been doing to me?”

“Well,” she said, “you were all broken up and bruised and had sustained severe concussion and had lost a lot of blood. They’ve had to put all that right, haven’t they?”

“But,” I said, “has anyone been doing anything with my gulliver? What I mean is, have they been playing around with inside like my brain?”

“Whatever they’ve done,” she said, “it’ll all be for the best.”

But a couple of days later a couple of like doctor vecks came in, both youngish vecks with these very sladky smiles, and they had like a picture book with them. One of them said:

“We want you to have a look at these and to tell us what you think about them. All right?”

“What giveth, O little droogies?” I said. “What new bezoomny idea dost thou in mind have?” So they both had a like embarrassed smeck at that and then they sat down either side of the bed and opened up this book. On the first page there was like a photograph of a bird-nest full of eggs.

“Yes?” one of these doctor vecks said.

“A bird-nest,” I said, “full of like eggs. Very very nice.”

“And what would you like to do about it?” the other one said.

“Oh,” I said, “smash them. Pick up the lot and like throw them against a wall or a cliff or something and then viddy them all smash up real horrorshow.”

“Good good,” they both said, and then the page was turned. It was like a picture of one of these bolshy great birds called peacocks with all its tail spread out in all colours in a very boastful way. “Yes?” said one of these vecks.