dovico's Technique, whatever it was, O my brothers. When I'd
finished my rabbit with the stereo he just govoreeted a few
slovos of thanks and then I was privodeeted back to the cell
on Tier 6 which was my very vonny and crammed home. The
chasso was not really too bad of a veck and he did not tol-
chock or kick me in when he'd opened up, he just said: "Here
we are, sonny, back to the old waterhole." And there I was
with my new type droogs, all very criminal but, Bog be
praised, not given to perversions of the body. There was
Zophar on his bunk, a very thin and brown veck who went on
and on and on in his like cancery goloss, so that nobody
bothered to slooshy. What he was saying now like to nobody
was "And at that time you couldn't get hold of a poggy" (what-
ever that was, brothers), "not if you was to hand over ten
million archibalds, so what do I do, eh, I goes down to
Turkey's and says I've got this sproog on that morrow, see,
and what can he do?" It was all this very old-time real crimi-
nal's slang he spoke. Also there was Wall, who had only one
glazzy, and he was tearing bits of his toe-nails off in honour of
Sunday. Also there was Big Jew, a very fat sweaty veck lying
flat on his bunk like dead. In addition there was Jojohn and
The Doctor. Jojohn was very mean and keen and wiry and had
specialized in like Sexual Assault, and The Doctor had pre-
tended to be able to cure syph and gon and gleet but he had
only injected water, also he had killed off two devotchkas
instead, like he had promised, of getting rid of their unwanted
loads for them. They were a terrible grahzny lot really, and I
didn't enjoy being with them, O my brothers, any more than
you do now, but it won't be for much longer.
Now what I want you to know is that this cell was intended
for only three when it was built, but there were six of us there,
all jammed together sweaty and tight. And that was the state
of all the cells in all the prisons in those days, brothers, and a
dirty cally disgrace it was, there not being decent room for a
chelloveck to stretch his limbs. And you will hardly believe
what I say now, which is that on this Sunday they brosatted in
another plenny. Yes, we had had our horrible pishcha of
dumplings and vonny stew and were smoking a quiet cancer
each on our bunks when this veck was thrown into our midst.
He was a chinny starry veck and it was him who started cree-
ching complaints before we even had a chance to viddy the
position. He tried to like shake the bars, creeching: "I demand
my sodding rights, this one's full-up, it's a bleeding im-
position, that's what it is." But one of the chassos came back
to say that he had to make the best of it and share a bunk
with whoever would let him, otherwise it would have to be
the floor. "And," said the warder, "it's going to get worse, not
better. A right dirty criminal world you lot are trying to
build."
2
Well, it was the letting-in of this new chelloveck that was
really the start of my getting out of the old Staja, for he was
such a nasty quarrelsome type of plenny, with a very dirty
mind and filthy intentions, that trouble nachinatted that very
same day. He was also very boastful and started to make with
a very sneery litso at us all and a loud proud goloss. He made
out that he was the only real horrorshow prestoopnick in the
whole zoo, going on that he'd done this and done the other
and killed ten rozzes with one crack of his rooker and all that
cal. But nobody was very impressed, O my brothers. So then
he started on me, me being the youngest there, trying to say
that as the youngest I ought to be the one to zasnoot on the
floor and not him. But all the others were for me, creeching:
"Leave him alone, you grahzny bratchny," and then he began
the old whine about how nobody loved him. So that same
nochy I woke up to find this horrible plenny actually lying
with me on my bunk, which was on the bottom of the three-
tier and also very narrow, and he was govoreeting dirty like
love-slovos and stroke stroke stroking away. So then I got
real bezoomny and lashed out, though I could not viddy all
that horrorshow, there being only this malenky little red light
outside on the landing. But I knew it was this one, the vonny
bastard, and then when the trouble really got under way and
the lights were turned on I could viddy his horrible litso with
all krovvy dripping from his rot where I'd hit out with my
clawing rooker.
What sloochatted then, of course, was that me cell-mates
woke up and started to join in, tolchocking a bit wild in the
near-dark, and the shoom seemed to wake up the whole tier,
so that you could slooshy a lot of creeching and banging
about with tin mugs on the wall, as though all the plennies in
all the cells thought a big break was about to commence, O
my brothers. So then the lights came on and the chassos came
along in their shirts and trousers and caps, waving big sticks.
We could viddy each other's flushed litsos and the shaking of
fisty rookers, and there was a lot of creeching and cursing.
Then I put in my complaint and every chasso said it was prob-
ably your Humble Narrator, brothers, that started it all
anyway, me having no mark of a scratch on me but this hor-
rible plenny dipping red red krovvy from the rot where I'd
got him with my clawing rooker. That made me real be-
zoomny. I said I would not sleep another nochy in that cell if
the Prison Authorities were going to allow horrible vonny
stinking perverted prestoopnicks to leap on my plott when I
was in no position to defend myself, being asleep. "Wait till
the morning," they said. "Is it a private room with bath and
television that your honour requires? Well, all that will be
seen to in the morning. But for the present, little droog, get
your bleeding gulliver down on your straw-filled podooshka
and let's have no more trouble from anyone. Right right
right?" Then off they went with stern warnings for all, then
soon after the lights went out, and then I said I would sit up
all the rest of the nochy, saying first to this horrible pre-
stoopnick: "Go on, get on my bunk if you wish it. I fancy it no
longer. You have made it filthy and cally with your horrible
vonny plott lying on it already." But then the others joined in.
Big Jew said, still sweating from the bit of a bitva we'd had in
the dark:
"Not having that we're not, brotherth. Don't give in to the
thquirt." So this new one said:
"Crash your dermott, yid," meaning to shut up, but it was
very insulting. So then Big Jew got ready to launch a tol-
chock. The Doctor said:
"Come on, gentlemen, we don't want any trouble, do we?"
in his very high-class goloss, but this new prestoopnick was
really asking for it. You could viddy that he thought he was a
very big bolshy veck and it was beneath his dignity to be
sharing a cell with six and having to sleep on the floor till I
made this gesture at him. In his sneery way he tried to take off
The Doctor, saying:
"Owwww, yew wahnt noo moor trouble, is that it, Archi-
balls?" So Jojohn, mean and keen and wiry, said:
"If we can't have sleep let's have some education. Our new
friend here had better be taught a lesson." Although he like
specialized in Sexual Assault he had a nice way of govoreeting,
quiet and like precise. So the new plenny sneered:
"Kish and kosh and koosh, you little terror." So then it all
really started, but in a queer like gentle way, with nobody
raising his goloss much. The new plenny creeched a malenky
bit at first, but the Wall fisted his rot while Big Jew held him
up against the bars so that he could be viddied in the malenky
red light from the landing, and he just went oh oh oh. He was
not a very strong type of veck, being very feeble in his trying
to tolchock back, and I suppose he made up for this by being
shoomny in the goloss and very boastful. Anyway, seeing the
old krovvy flow red in the red light, I felt the old joy like rising
up in my keeshkas and I said:
"Leave him to me, go on, let me have him now, brothers."
So Big Jew said:
"Yeth, yeth, boyth, that'th fair. Thlosh him then, Alekth." So
they all stood around while I cracked at this prestoopnick in
the near dark. I fisted him all over, dancing about with my
boots on though unlaced, and then I tripped him and he went
crash crash on to the floor. I gave him one real horrorshow
kick on the gulliver and he went ohhhh, then he sort of
snorted off to like sleep, and The Doctor said:
"Very well, I think that wil be enough of a lesson," squinting
to viddy this downed and beaten-up veck on the floor. "Let
him dream perhaps about being a better boy in the future." So
we all climbed back into our bunks, being very tired now.
What I dreamt of, O my brothers, was of being in some very
big orchestra, hundreds and hundreds strong, and the con-
ductor was a like mixture of Ludwig van and G. F. Handel,
looking very deaf and blind and weary of the world. I was
with the wind instruments, but what I was playing was like a
white pinky bassoon made of flesh and growing out of my
plott, right in the middle of my belly, and when I blew into it I
had to smeck ha ha ha very loud because it like tickled, and
then Ludwig van G. F. got very razdraz and bezoomny. Then
he came right up to my litso and creeched loud in my ooko,
and then I woke up like sweating. Of course, what the loud
shoom really was was the prison buzzer going brrrrr brrrrr
brrrrr. It was winter morning and my glazzies were all cally
with sleepglue, and when I opened up they were very sore in
the electric light that had been switched on all over the zoo.
Then I looked down and viddied this new prestoopnick lying
on the floor, very bloody and bruisy and still out out out.
Then I remembered about last night and that made me smeck
a bit.
But when I got off the bunk and moved him with my bare
noga, there was a feel of like stiff coldness, so I went over to
The Doctor's bunk and shook him, him always being very
slow at waking up in the morning. But he was off his bunk
skorry enough this time, and so were the others, except for
Wall who slept like dead meat. "Very unfortunate," The
Doctor said. "A heart attack, that's what it must have been."
Then he said, looking round at us all: "You really shouldn't
have gone for him like that. It was most ill-advised really."
Jojohn said:
"Come come, doc, you weren't all that backward yourself
in giving him a sly bit of fist." Then Big Jew turned on me,
saying:
"Alekth, you were too impetuouth. That latht kick wath a
very very nathty one." I began to get razdraz about this and
said:
"Who started it, eh? I only got in at the end, didn't I?" I
pointed at Jojohn and said: "It was your idea." Wall snored a
bit loud, so I said: "Wake that vonny bratchny up. It was him
that kept on at his rot while Big Jew here had him up against
the bars." The Doctor said:
"Nobody will deny having a little hit at the man, to teach
him a lesson so to speak, but it's apparent that you, my dear
boy, with the forcefulness and, shall I say, heedlessness of
youth, dealt him the coo de gras. It's a great pity."
"Traitors," I said. "Traitors and liars," because I could viddy
it was all like before, two years before, when my so-called
droogs had left me to the brutal rookers of the millicents.
There was no trust anywhere in the world, O my brothers, the
way I could see it. And Jojohn went and woke up Wall, and
Wall was only too ready to swear that it was Your Humble
Narrator that had done the real dirty tolchocking and brut-
ality. When the chassos came along, and then the Chief
Chasso, and then the Governor himself, all these cell-droogs
of mine were very shoomny with tales of what I'd done to
oobivat this worthless pervert whose krovvy-covered plott
lay sacklike on the floor.
That was a very queer day, O my brothers. The dead plott
was carried off, and then everybody in the whole prison had
to stay locked up until further orders, and there was no pishcha
given out, not even a mug of hot chai. We just all sat there,
and the warders or chassos sort of strode up and down the
tier, now and then creeching "Shut it" or "Close that hole"
whenever they slooshied even a whisper from any of the cells.
Then about eleven o'clock in the morning there was a sort of
like stiffening and excitement and like the von of fear spread-
ing from outside the cell, and then we could viddy the
Governor and the Chief Chasso and some very bolshy im-
portant-looking chellovecks walking by real skorry, govoreet-
ing like bezoomny. They seemed to walk right to the end
of the tier, then they could be slooshied walking back again,
more slow this time, and you could slooshy the Governor, a
very sweaty fatty fair-haired veck, saying slovos like "But, sir - "
and "Well, what can be done, sir?" and so on. Then the whole
lot stopped at our cell and the Chief Chasso opened up. You
could viddy who was the real important veck right away, very
tall and with blue glazzies and with real horrorshow platties
on him, the most lovely suit, brothers, I have ever viddied,
absolutely in the heighth of fashion. He just sort of looked
right through us poor plennies, saying, in a very beautiful real
educated goloss: "The Government cannot be concerned any
longer with outmoded penological theories. Cram criminals
together and see what happens. You get concentrated crimi-
nality, crime in the midst of punishment. Soon we may be
needing all our prison space for political offenders." I didn't
