'Goodness me no!' exclaimed the young man, smiling for the first time. 'Holestitching has come a long way since Dickens. You won't find a holesmith worth his thread trying the old "door opens and in comes the missing aunt/father/business associate/friend, etc.", all ready to explain where they've been since mysteriously dropping out of the narrative two hundred pages previously. The methodology we choose these days is to just go back and patch the hole, or more simply, to camouflage it.'

'I see.'

'Indeed,' carried on the young man, becoming more flamboyant in the light of my perceived interest, 'I'm working on a system that hides holes by highlighting them to the reader, which just says: "Ho! I'm a hole, don't think about it!", but it's a little cutting-edge. I think,' added the young man airily, 'that you will not find a more experienced holesmith anywhere in the Well; I've been doing it for more than forty years.'

'When did you start?' I observed, looking at the youth curiously. 'As a baby?'

The young man aged, greyed and sagged before my eyes until he was in his seventies and then announced, arms outstretched and with a nourish:

'Da-daaaa!'

'No one likes a show-off, Llyster,' said Bradshaw, looking at his watch. 'I don't want to hurry you, Tuesday, old girl, but we should be getting over to Norland Park for the roll-call.'

He gallantly offered me an elbow to hold and I hooked my arm in his.

'Thank you, Commander.'

'Stouter than stout!' Bradshaw laughed, and read us both into Sense and Sensibility.

10

Jurisfiction session number 40319

The offices of Jurisfiction were situated at Norland Park, the house of the Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility. The family kindly lent the ballroom to Jurisfiction on the unspoken condition that Jane Austen books would be an area of special protection.

Norland Park was located within a broad expanse of softly undulating grassland set about with ancient oaks. The evening was drawing on, as it generally did when we arrived, and wood pigeons cooed from the dovecote. The grass felt warm and comfortable like a heavily underlaid carpet, and the delicate scent of pine needles filled the air.

But all was not perfect in this garden of nineteenth-century prose; as we approached the house there seemed to be some sort of commotion. A demonstration, in fact — the sort of thing I was used to seeing at home. But this wasn't a rally about the price of cheese or whether the Whig Party were dangerously right wing and anti-Welsh, nor about whether Goliath had the right to force legislation compelling everyone to eat SmileyBurger at least twice a week. No, this demonstration was one you would expect to find only in the world of fiction.

The Bellman, elected head of Jurisfiction and dressed in the garb of a town crier, was angrily tingling his bell to try to persuade the crowd to calm down.

'Not again,' muttered Bradshaw as we walked up. 'I wonder what the Orals want this time?'

I was unfamiliar with the term, and since I didn't want to appear foolish, I tried to make sense of the crowd on my own. The person nearest to me was a shepherdess, although that was only a guess on my part as she didn't have any sheep — only a large crook. A boy dressed in blue with a horn was standing next to her discussing the falling price of lamb, and next to them was a very old woman with a small dog which whined, pretended to be dead, smoked a pipe and performed various other tricks in quick succession. Standing next to her was a small man in a long nightdress and bed hat who yawned loudly. Perhaps I was being slow, but it was only when I saw a large egg with arms and legs that I realised who they were.

'They're all nursery rhyme characters!' I exclaimed.

'They're a pain in the whatsit, that's what they are,' murmured Bradshaw as a small boy jumped from the crowd, grabbed a pig and made a dash for it. Bo-Peep hooked his ankle with her crook and the boy sprawled headlong on the grass. The pig rolled into a flower bed with a startled oink and then beat a hurried escape as a large man started to give the boy six of the best.

'… all we want is the same rights as any other character in the BookWorld,' said Humpty Dumpty, his ovoid face a deep crimson. 'Just because we have a duty to children and the oral tradition doesn't mean we can be taken advantage of.'

The crowd murmured and grunted their agreement. Humpty Dumpty continued as I stared at him, wondering whether his belt was actually a cravat, as it was impossible to tell which was his neck and which his waist.

'… we have a petition signed by over a thousand Orals who couldn't make it today,' said the large egg, waving a wad of papers amid shouts from the crowd.

'We're not joking this time, Mr Bellman,' added a baker, who was standing in a wooden tub with a butcher and a candlestick maker. 'We are quite willing to withdraw our rhymes if our terms are not met.'

There was a chorus of approval from the assembled characters.

'It was fine before they were unionised,' Bradshaw whispered in my ear. 'Come on, let's use the back door.'

We walked around to the side of the house, our feet crunching on the gravel chippings.

'Why can't characters from the oral tradition be a part of the Character Exchange Programme?' I asked.

'Who'd cover for them?' snorted Bradshaw. 'You?

'Couldn't we train up Generics as sort of, well, "character locums"?'

'Best to leave industrial relations to the people with the facts at their fingertips,' replied Bradshaw. 'We can barely keep pace with the volume of new material as it is. I shouldn't worry about Mr Dumpty; he's been agitating for centuries. It's not our fault he and his badly rhyming friends are still looked after by the old OralTradPlus agreement— Good heavens, Miss Dashwood! Does your mother know that you smoke?'

It was Marianne Dashwood, and she had been puffing away at a small roll-up as we rounded the corner. She quickly threw the butt away and held her breath for as long as possible before coughing and letting out a large cloud of smoke.

'Commander!' she wheezed, eyes watering. 'Promise you won't tell!'

'My lips are sealed,' replied Bradshaw sternly, just this once.'

Marianne breathed a sigh of relief and turned to me.

'Miss Next!' she enthused. 'Welcome back to our little book — I trust you are well?'

'Quite well,' I assured her, passing her the Marmite, Mintolas and AA batteries I had promised her from my last visit. 'Will you make sure these get to your sister and mother?'

She clapped her hands with joy and took the gifts excitedly.

'You are a darling!' she said happily. 'What can I do to repay you?'

'Don't let Lola Vavoom play you in the movie.'

'Out of my hands,' she replied unhappily, 'but if you need a favour, I'm here!'

We made our way up the servants' staircase and into the hall above where a much-bedraggled Bellman was walking towards us, shaking his head and holding the employment demands that Humpty Dumpty had thrust into his hands.