(still pushing trolloon) Call Mr Justice Skylab; be he brought,
To exercise his wisdom in this court.

Our jury stand, and summon him again.

Sir Justice Persiflage shall come at once!

'Tis odd, the nether Judges come no whit!

Then I suggest we shun them, as they us,
To feast on apples from my nether cart
Dispensing justice as the chemist pills
To folk who ail ...

                           As she whom once I loved
Much bussed on buses

                           No more talk of busts!
They plague us yet, the spectral mammaroons,
The bursting pockets, satchels curdled, rank
But always fresh in ...

                           Silence! Let's begin
The processes of law, though judgeless yet –
Accurst Carybdis, on thy fetid knees,

Carybd's not yet here. Let him be brought.

Be still! How plead'st thou, 'whole' or 'sundered yet'

I say he is not here. Be still, I say

Then who shall be our victim?

                                      It am I,
That utter inane burblings to the sky,
That foodstuffs bring, imbroglioed and round
To hole the sky with perforation's sound.

Ye shall not die.

                           We love thee dear, Carybd.
We should not ... No! Where is he gone? Whereat
Can his fair visage be espoused? Whereby
His presence felt? What man knows well his scent?
Or else his footprint?

                           That I know full well
'Tis shaped thus (gestures) – 'tis somewhat like a bell!
It ringeth when he walks ...

                           Such rubbish, knave!
No man more stealthy ever trod on loam
Than thee, Carybdis ...

                           I ...

                                       He nis not here!
The wight has vanished ...

                           Nonsense! In my care
Is Carybd, but alas I know not where.

The fools have cast me from their richest homes
Whenas the it they wootly wern espoused ...

Shut him up!

                           Aye, shut his very mouth

You, sir, Schiller, shall you tie your gullet,
Nor mention yet that gallowed bus, were it
Better than, not worse than all before.

(timidly) Excuse me, sirs – this Schiller, is he he ?

That being unwere, were, if he not he

Most so.

                This fruit so sour has tumbled down

Forget your rambling head, Putresco, shun
Thy vicious tongue.

                           (pp) Be still! It is a ruse
Designed by one of evil turn of mind
To daze my soul with rhetoric uncasked.

Yet he were never summon'd by the Turk,
Nor by any man or beast save him
Whom all of us combine in speaking of
By Dand Cnifu, who th'needle clomb of yore!
By the sacred breasts o'th'fair Rangoon
It shall not, nay it could not, have been true
By Xella, patron saint of all that burst
Upon the eightfold world a'th'start of time
By all the seven frogs that Hercul' ate
Impulsive for his tea.

                           Thy oath's too long!
You'll cut it as a winter horse his trumpet,
And even then you'll not be silent long
As 'wert before.

                           This double-dealing talk
Is less than not confusing. I'm confused.

(aside) Surprise! My deftness now in every eye
Shall conjure quiet subservience. Surprise!

Bosun, you'll be silent. Contempt of court
Would ... would ...

                           Would what, my trusty knave?

Cease your powers, Harris, fiend!

                                      Take that

I hate to be so tremulous and small ...

Forget your petty size, pathetic maid!
Thou art the King his bride, what need you more?

The King?

                Assuredly!

                           His bride? How so?
My mistress is his wife these eighty hours.

This maid is crazed; an not I'll kill her straight.

(reviving) Putresc, thou art an admirable man
For now the regal dalliance, and such
Can all be knit as one: who shall accuse?
Who shall allay confusion's torture, here?

Would it were one of solid uprightness
And durable, as is asbestos.

                                      Aye!
But where in all this throng were such as that?

Whenas the persons hereabouts are not
The ones most wholesome for this bunish task,
Then thou, Columbus, merchant of these shores
Who plies his honest trireme o'er the waves
In pelican's, in fife's, in bezom's search
Shall be the same. Take thou the word.

                                      Aye, well.

Good friends, what foolishness, I ask, is this?
The judges shun us, yet, 'par faute d'azure',
Or, equally, as said of old, 'illuc
Pro crastinas', which is traduced again
As 'Mene, mene, tekel, nay, upharsin'
Which is again, 'My tomes of crime forgot'.
And thus, you see, I am indeed less fit
Than were the sage geometers of old
But nonetheless, this post I'll take for you
As do I now. This show I have prepared:

(screaming wildly) Aye! and aye again! 'Twas Carybd thus
Who stole her from me, from me and me alone,
My fest'ring wife. O, Carybd am I not!

Let all haphazard happenings retire!

This crime, I say, would fill a weighty tome
With blackened pages. Carybd shall not 'scape
The vengeful wrath of us assembled here
He alien is. He wholesome is, withal.
This much is unfounded. But as yet
If all the world could not combine to say:
'It is', then accusation merit's goal
Were less than this: 'Non sequitur he is!'

I see, my friends, you are disturbed by this
Be not thus! The sentence shall be told
In solid, breasted, phrases of Peking,
As is ruled in Tembalos' great tomes
Illegal: Here the bunish charge is set.
'The wight Carybdis, be he whole or sick
Fester he in limbs, or just in head
In pancreas ...'

                           This is a long tirade!

(to Servant) Arrest that man or have him silenced. More!

Bethanked, Carybdis: ... 'or in mammaroon,
Hereby is hindered from his going hence
Or coming forth, like chrysalis from loam
Or as the ...'

                            Cut out those similes! I tire ...

You, my boy, be still! 'or as the Pole,
Who wends full eighty leagues to find his home
Ransacked by sage marauders quite abune.
In this the populace have pledged their word.
Thus Carybd, who shall as the leather boot
Disclose his torso male with breasts adorned
To all who would espy it, thus revealed
Thy guilt, 'In words of eight' we shun thee quite!'

Be he sundered yet from this our burgh
Or no, I care no whit. Pray, who craves tea?
I have within my bus a festive board
Of wholesomeness as yet untold. Pray, who
Shall feast? My gallows, shattered, be a bench
Whereon the seething populace may sit
And stuff their pleasant visages with food.

Combustibles I crave; to boil the tea
Is all I want: the rest I leave to thee

And I'll acquaint myself with this good ploy
And tie my shoe again. My business ends
A'the cock's fifth crowing, time indeed to eat.

Pray, what's this thronging up and down? And why?

Thou stand'st accurst! But, matters not! We're off
To taste Putresco's fare: tea, buns and cake.

May I come, too?

                           Good old Carybd! Why, yes!

Lovestow apples?

                           Aye!

                                      Then scoff thy fill:
There's plenty more whence they came!

                                      Good old Putresc!

Aye, then let's be gone to meet the bus,
And wallow ever in Putresco's pus!