1.
Chaindrag: The Bringing

hen, e’en after such much of those things as were written, there came a zesty multitude before the magistrate of a pulsling city wherein lay trade & inventiens &

            And the magistrate crawlt him neath his Grand Station, builded in the likeness of a spired hat, in whose upper reach dwelt the Famus Army of Town.  And he ascended into the lenschamber and percht therein, that his visage shone in the lens unto the peopel without as the face of a great lion neath the great hat from whose pinnacle do holy imaginaries chart the timeless cracking of the continents.  And the magistrait spake some come-on, saying, Raaa!  And hark, from all aroundabout the great hat came the saying with the loudness of godbetrayal-blastback, causing chickens to die in the venders’ coopfs, and dromedaries to slip their humpfs, and soldiers that were staish’t inside the hat to seize up numbis horrifacto, believing that war was upon them with their call to perish.  But there in the lenschambre did the magistrate buckle before his breath areek of cotterds & munk (which in that time were species of moldy foodities) returning upon him from offen the lens.  And he exclaim-ed and said, Sheww, and withdrew him unto the remotest crannie of the headspace, there making strategie, thinking, I shall turn aside mine head and speak my stormcraft in violent whispres, for to cheat such breathreturn.  And the cotterdonks & munkmongers shall be driven from my sight to crosspollute the wilderness.    

            But ’twere torrider than seven suns in this confine, magnifisant tho it be; and sweat dasht from his fibres like as the sea from a drawn net.  Tho never in the generations hath the hotmete exceeded threescore-five-&-ten, here in today’s day it reachen unto an hundreds & twelve, posting an assroaster, roasting asses in their hides where in the stony fields they toild.  And the magistrate, he suffereth his hell early here in this hat, lacking but hell’s dissonant choruses of screamings—the which in here wud to have splasht him cool comfert.

            Today’s sizzelwilly hath crumplt & twiggd after fourscore-eight, leaving there untraverst an hundreds twelve for announsiment.  And that magistrate considreth him self the Hotter’s Worm on this day.  For he saith, ’Twere as an all the hotness of histry were interr-ed in this kiln wherein I stand offishiating.  And reach-ed he into his pouch for some Hotter’s worms, that amateurish he might derive the hotmeasure in here; but they had all exsploded.

            In all the paepel’s eyes appeard now his face in the lens like unto an egg under steamy glass.  And his voice sounden now like as a babe’s bowel, and not as godbetrayalblastback.  And burdend with rituel, he feeld his devastatien increast there in the great hot hat; and he crusht his customary writs of proceeding and flang them apart, saying, I will be not about this for hours today, but for moments.  And he spake unto the throng, saying, What today, ye same complainers?  Wherefore come ye hither?  Swift unto your homes, I oughts dispel you thither.  Cud not we convene by lax of  night, that I might speak for hours?

            And a party arose from among them, those same few faces that alway do float in the midst of every local commotien, whatsoe’er its nature.  And these bore forth the one bound.  And their speaker spought (that same drat speaker, which seemeth to have no affairs of his own, nor no house to keep him); and he said, We have us here a futurist, which hath come striding amongst us—hell knoweth whence—as tho a better he be, as tho the recent-est ascendant to some High Five he be.  And he saith unto us, I have for you certain lucidatiens concerning that which shall come to pass.  Yet, then all that he saith unto us is some molarkie, Your Magistry.  And the speaker turnd, and kickt he the futurist.

            And this the speaker gatherd him self and spought further unto the magistrate, saying, He hath a leviathon mouth about him, this futurist, that knoweth how to say some malarky.  Yea, there is a story of him that I of sudden do remembre:  Hither came he over to the well, and unto the Wambahjonah lass (the whom he hath espied there drawing her water) saith he, We are an ancient lot who know little.  And hearing this, went she to pieces, Magistrate!  O, he broke her boat, with that!  Now in fact, wonderful & pretty Magistrate, we know that we know muche; ’tis no littel bit we are knowing.  And there walk among us some, such as I, who know more than words may suggest.  Wherefore then cometh this bastrid saying otherwisen?  Why, I will. . .  [And the speaker turnd, and kickt he the futurist with a dancekick.]

            For we have a pride (saith the speaker), and a dignidy won from hard years piled astride the pile of the striving.  Also a certain fine vanidy have we cultivated, which this noncompetent futurist hath offended in his unfavorabol contrastings of us with false worlds of tomorrow.  Well,

we know whither he may to go!  Already he is half-way to nowheres.  The very, very gall!  Let us to show him some good workoday stop tactix, teach him what we know of living, of plying the here & now, steadsof all the fancifying that he doth.  Let him to scorn the ancient spikes of our primitive headpresses whilst his evolvd pumpkin they do enter.  O, look, Magistrate: see there the little Wambahjonah maid, seeming now so usual, so fine & unrufft.  Yet we know that in side she is brake, whether or no it e’er show.  For that were the kind of words that he said unto her:  breaking words.     

            And the speaker droppt his tone in vocii dramaticos, saying, Ancient, saith he.  Primidive.  Knowing less than those who will follow.  Doth that sound like us?  [And he twisten his head and shaken it rapid, smiling the contentius humerless smile of rejecting things.]  If an any thing (so we teach), knowledge in fact declineth, neither doth it increase, with the generatiens.  For knoweth the child more than the father?  Noccum, necht.  He knoweth that which by the rod he hath been teacht.  Now, the generatiens of fathers overlook to teach an few of things, and elect to limit others, of bias or conveniense.  & also, who well might learn things whilst that damns rod were raining down?  That knocketh out e’en more memry. 

            And the magistrate said unto the futurist, Speak, and in pleasant tone:  Didst thou in fact stride, in coming hither, or merely walk?  [And the magistrate moppen his fountainous brow.]

            But the futurist were now asleepf in the heat.