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By Root 5598 0

look the same, in the dark especially. Here were houses and there was a like drinking mesto, and right at the end of the village there was a malenky cottage on its oddy knocky, and I could viddy its name shining on the gate. HOME, it said. I was all dripping wet with this icy rain, so that my platties were no longer in the heighth of fashion but real miserable and like pathetic, and my luscious glory was a wet tangle cally mess all spread over my gulliver, and I was sure there were cuts and bruises all over my litso, and a couple of my zoobies sort of joggled loose when I touched them with my tongue or yahzick. And I was sore all over my plott and very thirsty, so that I kept opening my rot to the cold rain, and my stomach growled grrrrr all the time with not having had any pishcha since morning and then not very much, O my brothers.

HOME, it said, and perhaps here would be some veck to help. I opened the gate and sort of slithered down the path, the rain like turning to ice, and then I knocked gentle and pathetic on the door. No veck came, so I knocked a malenky bit longer and louder, and then I heard the shoom of nogas coming to the door. Then the door opened and a male goloss said: “Yes, what is it?”

“Oh,” I said, “please help. I’ve been beaten up by the police and just left to die on the road. Oh, please give me a drink of something and a sit by the fire, please, sir.” The door opened full then, and I could viddy like warm light and a fire going crackle crackle within. “Come in,” said this veck, “whoever you are. God help you, you poor victim, come in and let’s have a look at you.” So I like staggered in, and it was no big act I was putting on, brothers, I really felt done and finished. This kind veck put his rookers round my pletchoes and pulled me into this room where the fire was, and of course I knew right away now where it was and why HOME on the gate looked so familiar. I looked at this veck and he looked at me in a kind sort of way, and I remembered him well now. Of course he would not remember me, for in those carefree days I and my so-called droogs did all our bolshy dratsing and fillying and crasting in maskies which were real horrorshow disguises. He was a shortish veck in middle age, thirty, forty, fifty, and he had otchkies on. “Sit down by the fire,” he said, “and I’ll get you some whisky and warm water. Dear dear dear, somebody has been beating you up.” And he gave a like tender look at my gulliver and litso. “The police,” I said. “The horrible ghastly police.”

“Another victim,” he said, like sighing. “A victim of the modern age. I’ll go and get you that whisky and then I must clean up your wounds a little.” And off he went. I had a look round this malenky comfortable room. It was nearly all books now and a fire and a couple of chairs, and you could viddy somehow that there wasn’t a woman living there. On the table was a typewriter and a lot of like tumbled papers, and I remembered that this veck was a writer veck. ‘A Clockwork Orange’, that had been it. It was funny that that stuck in my mind. I must not let on, though, for I needed help and kindness now. Those horrible grahzny bratchnies in that terrible white mesto had done that to me, making me need help and kindness now and forcing me to want to give help and kindness myself, if anybody would take it.

“Here we are, then,” said this veck returning. He gave me this hot stimulating glassful to peet, and it made me feel better, and then he cleaned up these cuts on my litso. Then he said: “You have a nice hot bath, I’ll draw it for you, and then you can tell me all about it over a nice hot supper which I’ll get ready while you’re having the bath.” O my brothers, I could have wept at his kindness, and I think he must have viddied the old tears in my glazzies, for he said: “There there there,” patting me on the pletcho.

Anyway, I went up and had this hot bath, and he brought in pyjamas and an over-gown for me to put on, all warmed by the fire, also a very worn pair of toofles. And now, brothers, though I was aching and full of pains all over, I felt