Alex: Hi, hi, hi, Mr. Deltoid. Funny surprise, seeing you here.P.R. Deltoid: Ah, Alex boy! Awake at last, yes? I met your mother on the way to work, yes? She gave me the key. She said something about a pain somewhere, hence not at school, yes?Alex: A rather intolerable pain in the head, brother sir. I think it should be clear by this after lunch.P.R. Deltoid: Mmm. Or certainly by this evening, yes? The evening's the great time, isn't it, Alex boy? Hmm?Alex: Cup of the old chai, sir?P.R. Deltoid: No time, no time, yes. Sit, sit, sit!Alex: To what do I owe this extreme pleasure, sir? Anything wrong, sir?P.R. Deltoid: Wrong? Why should you think of anything being wrong? Have you been doing something you shouldn't, yes?Alex: Just a manner of speech, sir.P.R. Deltoid: Yes. Well, it's just a manner of speech from your post-corrective advisor to you that you watch out, little Alex, because next time, it's not going to be the corrective school anymore. Next time, it's going to be the barley place and all my work ruined. If you've no respect for your horrible self, you at least might have some for me, who've sweated over you. A big black mark, I tell you, for every one we don't reclaim. A confession of failure for every one of you who ends up in the stripy hole.Alex: I've been doing nothing I shouldn't, sir. The Millicents have nothing on me, brother. Sir, I mean.P.R. Deltoid: Cut out this clever talk about Millicents. Just because the police haven't picked you up lately doesn't, as you very well know, mean that you've not been up to some nastiness. That was a bit of a nastiness last night, yes? Some very extreme nastiness, yes? A few of a certain Billy Boy's friends were ambulanced off late, yes. Your name was mentioned. The words got through to me by the usual channels. Certain friends of yours were named also. Oh, nobody can prove anything about anybody, as usual. But I'm warning you, little Alex, being a good friend to you, as always, the one man in this sore and sick community who wants to save you from yourself![pause]P.R. Deltoid: What gets into all? We studied the problem. We've been studying it for damn well near a century, yes, but we get no further with our studies. You got a good home here. Good, loving parents. You've got not too bad of a brain. Is it some devil that crawls inside of you?Alex: Nobody's got anything on me, brother sir. I've been out of the rookers of the Millicents for a long time now.P.R. Deltoid: That's just what worries me. A bit too long to be safe. You're about due now, by my reckoning. That's why I'm warning you, little Alex, to keep your handsome young proboscis out of the dirt. Do I make myself clear?Alex: As an unmuddied lake, sir. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, sir.

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