“Makes you feel real dobby, that does,” said Pete. You could viddy that poor old Dim the dim didn’t quite pony all that, but he said nothing for fear of being called gloopy and a domeless wonderboy. Well, we went off now round the corner to Attlee Avenue, and there was this sweets and cancers shop still open. We’d left them alone near three months now and the whole district had been very quiet on the whole, so the armed millicents or rozz patrols weren’t round there much, being more north of the river these days. We put our maskies on—new jobs these were, real horrorshow, wonderfully done really; they were like faces of historical personalities (they gave you the names when you bought) and I had Disraeli, Pete had Elvis Presley, Georgie had Henry VIII and poor old Dim had a poet veck called Peebee Shelley; they were a real like disguise, hair and all, and they were some very special plastic veshch so you could roll it up when you’d done with it and hide it in your boot—then three of us went in.

Pete keeping chasso without, not that there was anything to worry about out there. As soon as we launched on the shop we went for Slouse who ran it, a big portwine jelly of a veck who viddied at once what was coming and made straight for the inside where the telephone was and perhaps his well-oiled pooshka, complete with six dirty rounds. Dim was round that counter skorry as a bird, sending packets of snoutie flying and cracking over a big cut-out showing a sharp with all her zoobies going flash at the customers and her groodies near hanging out to advertise some new brand of cancers. What you could viddy then was a sort of a big ball rolling into the inside of the shop behind the curtain, this being old Dim and Slouse sort of locked in a death struggle. Then you could slooshy panting and snoring and kicking behind the curtain and veshches falling over and swearing and then glass going smash smash smash. Mother Slouse, the wife, was sort of froze behind the counter. We could tell she would creech murder given one chance, so I was round that counter very skorry and had a hold of her, and a horrorshow big lump she was too, all nuking of scent and with flipflop big bobbing groodies on her. I’d got my rooker round her rot to stop her belting out death and destruction to the four winds of heaven, but this lady doggie gave me a large foul big bite on it and it was me that did the creeching, and then she opened up beautiful with a flip yell for the millicents. Well, then she had to be tolchocked proper with one of the weights for the scales, and then a fair tap with a crowbar they had for opening cases, and that brought the red out like an old friend. So we had her down on the floor and a rip of her platties for fun and a gentle bit of the boot to stop her moaning. And, viddying her lying there with her groodies on show, I wondered should I or not, but that was for later on in the evening. Then we cleaned the till, and there was flip horrorshow takings that nochy, and we had a few packs of the very best top cancers apiece, then off we went, my brothers.

“A real big heavy great bastard he was,” Dim kept saying. I didn’t like the look of Dim: he looked dirty and untidy, like a veck who’d been in a fight, which he had been, of course, but you should never look as though you have been. His cravat was like someone had trampled on it, his maskie had been pulled off and he had floor-dirt on his litso, so we got him in an alleyway and tidied him up a malenky bit, soaking our tashtooks in spit to cheest the dirt off. The things we did for old Dim. We were back in the Duke of New York very skorry and I reckoned by my watch we hadn’t been more than ten minutes away. The starry old baboochkas were still there on the black and suds and Scotchmen we’d bought them, and we said: “Hallo there, girlies, what’s it going to be?” They started on the old “Very kind, lads, God bless you, boys,” and so we rang the collocol and brought a different waiter in this time and we ordered beers with rum in, being sore athirst, my brothers, and whatever the old ptitsas wanted. Then I said to the old baboochkas: “We haven’t been out of here, have we? Been here all the time, haven’t we?” They all caught on real skorry and said:

“That’s right, lads. Not been out of our sight, you haven’t. God bless you, boys,” drinking.

Not that it mattered much, really. About half an hour went by before there was any sign of life among the millicents, and then it was only two very young rozzes that came in, very pink under their big copper’s shlemmies. One said:

“You lot know anything about the happenings at Slouse’s shop this night?”

“Us?” I said, innocent. “Why, what happened?”

“Stealing and roughing. Two hospitalizations. Where’ve you lot been this evening?”

“I don’t go for that nasty tone,” I said. “I don’t care much for these nasty insinuations. A very suspicious nature all this betokeneth, my little brothers.”

“They’ve been in here all night, lads,” the old sharps started to creech out. “God bless them, there’s no better lot of boys living for kindness and generosity. Been here all the time they have. Not seen them move we haven’t.”

“We’re only asking,” said the other young millicent. “We’ve got our job to do like anyone else.” But they gave us the nasty warning look before they went out. As they were going out we handed them a bit of lip-music: brrrrzzzzrrrr. But, myself, I couldn’t help a bit of disappointment at things as they were those days. Nothing to fight against really. Everything as easy as kiss-my-sharries. Still, the night was still very young.

When we got outside of the Duke of New York we viddied by the main bar’s long lighted window, a burbling old pyahnitsa or drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blerp blerp in between as though it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. One veshch I could never stand was that. I could never stand to see a moodge all filthy and rolling and burping and drunk, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real starry like this one was. He was sort of flattened to the wall and his platties were a disgrace, all creased and untidy and covered in cal and mud and filth and stuff. So we got hold of him and cracked him with a few good horrorshow tolchoks, but he still went on singing. The song went:

But when Dim fisted him a few times on his filthy drunkard’s rot he shut up singing and started to creech: “Go on, do me in, you bastard cowards, I don’t want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this one.” I told Dim to lay off a bit then, because it used to interest me sometimes to slooshy what some of these starry decreps had to say about life and the world. I said: “Oh. And what’s stinking about it?”

He cried out: “It’s a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old like you done, and there’s no law nor order no more.” He was creeching out loud and waving his rookers and making real horrorshow with the slovos, only the odd blurp blurp coming from his keeshkas, like something was orbiting within, or like some very rude interrupting sort of a moodge making a shoom, so that this old veck kept sort of threatening it with his fists, shouting: “It’s no world for any old man any longer, and that means that I’m not one bit scared of you, my boyos, because I’m too drunk to feel the pain if you hit me, and if you kill me I’ll be glad to be dead.”

We smecked and then grinned but said nothing, and then he said: “What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon and men spinning round the earth like it might be midges round a lamp, and there’s not more attention paid to earthly law nor order no more. So your worst you may do, you filthy cowardly hooligans.” Then he gave us some lip-music—“Prrrrzzzzrrrr”—like we’d done to those young millicents, and then he started singing again: