A Clockwork Orange - Burgess, Anthony [22]
“Right, my droogies, now we should know. Yes, Pete?”
“I never said anything,” said Pete. “I never govoreeted one slovo. Look, old Dim’s bleeding to death.”
“Never,” I said. “One can die but once. Dim died before he was born. That red red krovvy will soon stop.” Because I had not cut into the like main cables. And I myself took a clean tashtook from my carman to wrap round poor old dying Dim’s rooker, howling and moaning as he was, and the krovvy stopped like I said it would, O my brothers. So they knew now who was master and leader, sheep, thought I. It did not take long to quieten these two wounded soldiers down in the snug of the Duke of New York, what with large brandies (bought with their own cutter, me having given all to my dad, and a wipe with tashtooks dipped in the water-jug. The old ptitsas we’d been so horrorshow to last night were there again, going, “Thanks, lads” and “God bless you, boys” like they couldn’t stop, though we had not repeated the old sammy act with them. But Pete said: “What’s it to be, girls?” and bought black and suds for them, him seeming to have a fair amount of pretty polly in his carmans, so they were on louder than ever with their “God bless and keep you all,lads” and “We’d never split on you, boys” and “The best lads breathing, that’s what you are.” At last I said to Georgie: “Now we’re back to where we were, yes? Just like before and all forgotten, right?”
“Right right right,” said Georgie. But old Dim still looked a bit dazed and he even said: “I could have got that big bastard, see, with my oozy, only some veck got in the way,” as though he’d been dratsing not with me but with some other malchick. I said:
“Well, Georgieboy, what did you have in mind?”
“Oh,” said Georgie, “not tonight. Not this nochy, please.”
“You’re a big strong chelloveck,” I said, “like us all. We’re not little children, are we, Georgieboy? What, then, didst thou in thy mind have?”
“I could have chained his glazzies real horrorshow,” said Dim, and the old baboochkas were stil on with their “Thanks, lads.”
“It was this house, see,” said Georgie. “The one with the two lamps outside. The one with the gloopy name like.”
“What gloopy name?”
“The Mansion or the Manse or some such piece of gloop. Where this very starry ptitsa lives with her cats and all these very starry valuable veshches.”
“Such as?”
“Gold and silver and like jewels. It was Will the English who like said.”
“I viddy,” I said. “I viddy horrorshow.” I knew where he meant - Oldtown, just beyond Victoria Flatblock. Well, the real horrorshow leader knows always when like to give and show generous to his like unders. “Very good, Georgie,” I said. “A good thought, and one to be followed. Let us at once itty.” And as we were going out the old baboochkas said: “We’ll say nothing, lads. Been here all the time you have, boys.” So I said: “Good old girls. Back to buy more in ten minutes.” And so I led my three droogs out to my doom.
A Clockwork Orange
6
Just past the Duke of New York going east was offices and then there was the starry beat-up biblio and then was the bolshy flatblock called Victoria Flatblock after some victory or other, and then you came to the like starry type houses of the town in what was called Oldtown. You got some of the real horrorshow ancient domies here, my brothers, with starry lewdies living in them, thin old barking like colonels with sticks and old ptitsas who were widows and deaf starry damas with cats who, my brothers, had felt not