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... Frankly I wish I had never involved myself in this uh matter. That bloody grease has too much carbolic in it. I was down to customs one day last week. Stuck a broom handle into a drum of it, and the grease ate the end off straight away. Besides, the stink is enough to knock a man on his bloody ass. You should take a walk down by the port." "I'll do no such thing," Marvie screeched. It is a mark of caste in the Zone never to touch or even go near what you are selling. To do so gives rise to suspicion of retailing, that is of being a common peddler. A good part of the merchandise in the Zone is sold through street peddlers. "Why do you tell me all this? It's too sordid! Let the retailers worry about it." "Oh it's all very well for you chaps, you can scud out from under. But I have a reputation to maintain.... There'll be a spot of bother about this." "Do you suggest there is something illegitimate in this operation?" "Not illegitimate exactly. But shoddy. Definitely shoddy." "Oh go back to your Island before it falls! We knew you when you were peddling your purple ass in the Plaza pissoirs for five pesetas." "And not many takers either," Leif put in. He pro- nounced it ither. This reference to his Island origin was more than the Expeditor could stand.... He was draw- ing himself up, mobilizing his most frigid impersona- tion of an English aristocrat, preparing to deliver an icy, clipped "crusher," but instead, a whining, whimpering, kicked dog snarl broke from his mouth. His presurgery face emerged in an arc-light of incandescent hate.... He began to spit curses in the hideous, strangled gut- turals of the Island dialect. The Islanders all profess ignorance of the dialect or fiatly deny its existence. "We are Breetish," they say. "We don't got no bloody dealect." Froth gathered at the corners of the Expeditor's mouth. He was spitting little balls of saliva like pieces of cotton. The stench of spiritual vileness hung in the airs about him like a green cloud. Marvie and Leif fell back twittering in alarm. 'He's gone mad," Marvie gasped. "Let's get ont of here." Hand in hand they skip away into the mist that covers the Zone in the winter months like a cold Turk- ish Bath. |
