The Bellman, elected head of Jurisfiction and dressed in the garb of a town crier, was angrily tingling his bell to try to persuade the crowd to calm down.

'Not again,' muttered Bradshaw as we walked up. 'I wonder what the Orals want this time?'

I was unfamiliar with the term, and since I didn't want to appear foolish, I tried to make sense of the crowd on my own. The person nearest to me was a shepherdess, although that was only a guess on my part as she didn't have any sheep — only a large crook. A boy dressed in blue with a horn was standing next to her discussing the falling price of lamb, and next to them was a very old woman with a small dog which whined, pretended to be dead, smoked a pipe and performed various other tricks in quick succession. Standing next to her was a small man in a long nightdress and bed hat who yawned loudly. Perhaps I was being slow, but it was only when I saw a large egg with arms and legs that I realised who they were.

'They're all nursery rhyme characters!' I exclaimed.

'They're a pain in the whatsit, that's what they are,' murmured Bradshaw as a small boy jumped from the crowd, grabbed a pig and made a dash for it. Bo-Peep hooked his ankle with her crook and the boy sprawled headlong on the grass. The pig rolled into a flower bed with a startled oink and then beat a hurried escape as a large man started to give the boy six of the best.

'… all we want is the same rights as any other character in the BookWorld,' said Humpty Dumpty, his ovoid face a deep crimson. 'Just because we have a duty to children and the oral tradition doesn't mean we can be taken advantage of.'

The crowd murmured and grunted their agreement. Humpty Dumpty continued as I stared at him, wondering whether his belt was actually a cravat, as it was impossible to tell which was his neck and which his waist.

'… we have a petition signed by over a thousand Orals who couldn't make it today,' said the large egg, waving a wad of papers amid shouts from the crowd.

'We're not joking this time, Mr Bellman,' added a baker, who was standing in a wooden tub with a butcher and a candlestick maker. 'We are quite willing to withdraw our rhymes if our terms are not met.'

There was a chorus of approval from the assembled characters.

'It was fine before they were unionised,' Bradshaw whispered in my ear. 'Come on, let's use the back door.'

We walked around to the side of the house, our feet crunching on the gravel chippings.

'Why can't characters from the oral tradition be a part of the Character Exchange Programme?' I asked.

'Who'd cover for them?' snorted Bradshaw. 'You?

'Couldn't we train up Generics as sort of, well, "character locums"?'

'Best to leave industrial relations to the people with the facts at their fingertips,' replied Bradshaw. 'We can barely keep pace with the volume of new material as it is. I shouldn't worry about Mr Dumpty; he's been agitating for centuries. It's not our fault he and his badly rhyming friends are still looked after by the old OralTradPlus agreement— Good heavens, Miss Dashwood! Does your mother know that you smoke?'

It was Marianne Dashwood, and she had been puffing away at a small roll-up as we rounded the corner. She quickly threw the butt away and held her breath for as long as possible before coughing and letting out a large cloud of smoke.

'Commander!' she wheezed, eyes watering. 'Promise you won't tell!'

'My lips are sealed,' replied Bradshaw sternly, just this once.'

Marianne breathed a sigh of relief and turned to me.

'Miss Next!' she enthused. 'Welcome back to our little book — I trust you are well?'

'Quite well,' I assured her, passing her the Marmite, Mintolas and AA batteries I had promised her from my last visit. 'Will you make sure these get to your sister and mother?'

She clapped her hands with joy and took the gifts excitedly.

'You are a darling!' she said happily. 'What can I do to repay you?'

'Don't let Lola Vavoom play you in the movie.'

'Out of my hands,' she replied unhappily, 'but if you need a favour, I'm here!'

We made our way up the servants' staircase and into the hall above where a much-bedraggled Bellman was walking towards us, shaking his head and holding the employment demands that Humpty Dumpty had thrust into his hands.

'Those Orals get more and more militant every day,' he gasped. 'They are planning a forty-eight-hour walk-out tomorrow.'

'What effect will that have?' I asked.

'I should have thought that would be obvious,' chided the Bellman. 'Nursery rhymes will be unavailable for recall. In the Outland there will be a lot of people thinking they have bad memories. It won't do the slightest bit of good — a story book is usually in reach wherever a nursery rhyme is told.'

'Ah,' I said.

'The biggest problem,' added the Bellman, mopping his brow, 'is that if we give in to the nursery rhymsters everyone else will want to renegotiate their agreements — from the poeticals all the way through to nursery stories and even characters in jokes. Sometimes I'm glad I'm up for retirement — then someone like you can take over, Commander Bradshaw!'

'Not me!' he said grimly. 'I wouldn't be the Bellman again for all the Ts in Little Tim Tottle's twin sisters take time tittle-tattling in a tuttle-tuttle tree — twice.'

The Bellman laughed and we entered the ballroom of Norland Park.

'Have you heard?' said a young man who approached us with no small measure of urgency in his voice. 'The Red Queen had to have her leg amputated. Arterial thrombosis, the doctor told me.'

'Really?' I said. 'When?'

'Last week. And that's not all.'

He lowered his voice.

'The Bellman has gassed himself! '

'But we were just talking to him,' I replied.

'Oh,' said the young man, thinking hard, 'I meant Perkins has gassed himself.'

Miss Havisham joined us.

'Billy!' she said in a scolding tone. 'That's quite enough of that. Buzz off before I box your ears!'

The young man looked deflated for a moment then pulled himself up, announced haughtily that he had been asked to write additional dialogue for John Steinbeck and strode off. Miss Havisham shook her head sadly.

'If he ever says "good morning",' she said, 'don't believe him. All well, Trafford?'

'Top hole, Estella, old girl, top hole. I bumped into Tuesday here in the Well.'

'Not selling parts of your book, were you?' she asked mischievously.

'Good heavens, no!' replied Bradshaw, feigning shock and surprise. 'Goodness me,' he added, staring into the room for some form of escape, 'I must just speak to the Cheshire Cat. Good day!'

And, tipping his pith helmet politely, he was gone.

'Bradshaw, Bradshaw,' sighed Miss Havisham, shaking her head sadly, 'soon Bradshaw defies the Kaiser will have so many holes we could use it as a colander.'

'He wanted to buy a dress for Mrs Bradshaw,' I explained.

'Have you met her yet?'

'Not yet.'

'When you do, don't stare, will you? It's very rude.'

'Why would I—'

'Come along!' interrupted Miss Havisham. 'Almost time for roll-call!'

The ballroom of Norland Park had long since been used for nothing but Jurisfiction business. The floor space was covered with tables and filing cabinets, and the many desks were piled high with files tied up with ribbon. There was a table to one side with food upon it and waiting for us — or the Bellman, at least — were the staff at Jurisfiction. There were about thirty operatives on the active list, and since up to ten of them were busy on assignment and five or so active in their own books, there were never more than fifteen people in the office at any one time. Vernham Deane gave me a cheery wave as we entered. He was the resident cad and philanderer in a Daphne Farquitt novel entitled The Squire of High Potternews, but you would never know to talk to him — he had always been polite and courteous to me. Next to him was Harris Tweed, who had intervened back at the Slaughtered Lamb only the day before.

'Miss Havisham!' he exclaimed, walking over and handing us both a plain envelope. 'I've got your bounty for those grammasites you killed; I split it equally, yes?'

He winked at me, then left before Havisham could say anything.

'Thursday!' said Akrid Snell. 'Sorry to dash off like that yesterday. Hello, Miss Havisham — I heard you got swarmed by a few grammasites; no one's ever shot six Verbisoids in one go before!'

'Piece of cake,' I replied. 'And Akrid, I've still got that — er — thing you bought.'

'Thing? What thing?'

'You remember,' I urged, knowing that trying to influence his own narrative was strictly forbidden, 'the thing. In a bag. You know.'

'Oh! Ah … ah, yes,' he said, finally realising what I was talking about. 'The thing thing. I'll pick it up after work, yes?'

'Snell insider-trading again?' asked Havisham quietly as soon as he had left.

'I'm afraid so.'

'I'd do the same if my book was as bad as his.'

I looked around to see who else had turned up. Sir John Falstaff was there, as was King Pellinore, Deane, Lady Cavendish, Mrs Tiggy-winkle with Emperor Zhark in attendance, Gully Foyle, and Perkins.

'Who are they?' I asked Havisham, pointing to two agents I didn't recognise.

'Ichabod Crane is the one on the left holding the pumpkin,' she explained. 'Beatrice is the other. A bit loud for my liking, but good at her job.'

I thanked her and looked around for the Red Queen, whose open hostility to Havisham was Jurisfiction's least well-kept secret; she was nowhere to be seen.

'Hail, Miss Next!' rumbled Falstaff, waddling up and staring at me unsteadily from within a cloud of alcohol fumes. He had drunk, stolen and womanised throughout Henry IV Parts I and II then inveigled himself into The Merry Wives of Windsor. Some saw him as a likeable rogue; I saw him as just plain revolting — although he was the blueprint of likeable debauchers in fiction everywhere, so I thought I should try to cut him a bit of slack.

'Good morning, Sir John,' I said, trying to be polite.

'Good morning to you, sweet maid,' he exclaimed happily. 'Do you ride?'

'A little.'

'Then perhaps you might like to take a ride up and down the length of my merry England? I could take you places and show you things—'

'I must politely decline, Sir John.'

He laughed noisily in my face. I felt a flush of anger rise within me but luckily the Bellman, unwilling to waste any more time, had stepped up to his small dais and tingled his bell.

'Sorry to keep you all waiting,' he muttered. 'As you have seen, things are a little fraught outside. But I am delighted to see so many of you here. Is there anyone still to come?'

'Shall we wait for Godot?' enquired Deane.

'Anyone know where he is?' asked the Bellman. 'Beatrice, weren't you working with him?'

'Not I,' replied the young woman. 'You might enquire this of Benedict if he troubles to attend but you would as well speak to a goat — a stupid goat, mark me.'

'The sweet lady's tongue does abuse to our ears,' said Benedict, who had been seated out of our view but now rose to glare at Beatrice. 'Were the fountain of your mind clear again, that I might water an ass at it.'

'Ah!' retorted Beatrice with a laugh. 'Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike!'

'Dear Beatrice,' returned Benedict, bowing low, 'I was looking for a fool when I found you.'

'You, Benedict, who has not so much brain as ear-wax?'

They narrowed their eyes at one another and then smiled with polite enmity.

'All right, all right,' interrupted the Bellman. 'Calm down, you two. Do you know where Agent Godot is or not?'

Beatrice answered that she didn't.

'Right,' announced the Bellman. 'Let's get on. Jurisfiction meeting number 40319 is now in session.'

He tingled his bell again, coughed and consulted his clipboard.

'Item one. Our congratulations go to Deane and Lady Cavendish for foiling the Bowdlerisers in Chaucer.'

There were a few words of encouragement and back-slapping.

'There has been damage done but it's got no worse, so let's just try and keep an eye out in the future. Item two.'

He put down his clipboard and leaned on the lectern.

'Remember that craze a few years back in the BookWorld for sending chain letters? Receive a letter and send one on to ten friends? Well, someone has been over-enthusiastic with the letter "U". I've got a report here from the Text Sea Environmental Protection Agency saying that reserves of the letter "U" have reached dangerously low levels — we need to decrease consumption until stocks are brought back up. Any suggestions?'

'How about using a lower-case "N" upside down?' said Benedict.

'We tried that with "M" and "W" during the Great "M" Migration of '62; it never worked.'

'How about respelling what, what?' suggested King Pellinore, stroking his large white moustache. 'Any word with the "our" ending could be spelt "or", dontchaknow.'

'Like neighbor instead of neighbour?

'It's a good idea,' put in Snell. 'Labor, valor, flavor, harbor— there are hundreds. If we confine it to one geographical area we can claim it as a local spelling idiosyncrasy.'

'Hmm,' said the Bellman, thinking hard. 'Do you know, it just might work.'

He looked at his clipboard again.

'Item three — Tweed, are you here?'

Harris Tweed signalled from where he was sitting.

'Good,' continued the Bellman. 'I understand you were pursuing a PageRunner who had taken up residence in the Outland?'

Tweed glanced at me and stood up.

'Fellow by the name of Yorrick Kaine. He's something of a big cheese in the Outland — runs Kaine Publishing and has set himself up as head of his own political party—'

'Yes, yes,' said the Bellman impatiently, 'and he stole Cardenio, I know — but the point is, where is he now?'

'He went back to the Outland where I lost him,' replied Tweed.

'The Council of Genres are not keen to sanction any work in the real world,' said the Bellman slowly. 'It's too risky. We don't even know which book Kaine is from — and since he's not doing anything against us at present, I think he should stay in the Outland.'

'But Kaine is a real danger to our world,' I exclaimed.

Considering Kaine's righter-than-right politics, this was a fresh limit to the word understatement.

'He has stolen from the Great Library once,' I continued. 'How can we suppose he won't do the same again? Don't we have a duty to the readers to protect them from fictionauts hell-bent on—'

'Ms Next,' interrupted the Bellman, 'I understand what you are saying but I am not going to sanction an operation in the Outland. I'm sorry, but that is how it is going to be. He goes on the PageRunners' register and we'll set up textual sieves on every floor of the Library in case he plans to come back. Out there you may do as you please; here you do as we tell you. Is that clear?'

I grew hot and angry but Miss Havisham squeezed my arm, so I remained quiet.

'Good,' carried on the Bellman, consulting his clipboard again. 'Item four. Text Grand Central have reported several attempted incursions from the Outland. Nothing serious but enough to generate a few ripples in the Ficto-Outland barrier. Miss Havisham, didn't you report that an Outlander company was doing some research into entering fiction?'

It was true. Goliath had been attempting entry into the BookWorld for many years but with little success; all they had managed to do was extract a stodgy gunge from volumes one to eight of The World of Cheese. Uncle Mycroft had sought refuge in the Sherlock Holmes series to avoid them.

'It was called the Something Company,' replied Havisham thoughtfully.

'Goliath,' I told her. 'It's called the Goliath Corporation.'

'Goliath. That was it. I had a look round while I was retrieving Miss Next's TravelBook.'

'Do you think Outlander technology is that far advanced?' asked the Bellman.

'No. They're still a long way away. They'd been trying to send an unmanned probe into The Listeners but, from what I saw, with little success.'

'Okay,' replied the Bellman, 'we'll keep an eye on them. What was their name again?'

'Goliath,' I said.

He made a note.

'Item five. All of the punctuation has been stolen from the final chapter of Ulysses. Probably about five hundred assorted full stops, commas, apostrophes and colons.'

He paused for a moment.

'Vern, weren't you doing some work on this?'

'Indeed,' replied the squire, stepping forward and opening a notebook. 'We noticed the theft two days ago. I spoke to the Cat and he said that no one has entered the book, so we can only assume that the novel was penetrated through the literary interpretation of Dublin — which gives us several thousand suspects. I surmise the thief thought no one would notice as most readers never get that far into Ulysses — you will recall the theft of chapter sixty-two from Moby-Dick, which no one ever noticed? Well, this theft was noted, but initial reports show that readers are regarding the lack of punctuation as not a cataclysmic error but the mark of a great genius, so we've got some breathing space.'

'Are we sure it was a thief?' asked Beatrice. 'Couldn't it just be grammasites?'

'I don't think so,' replied Perkins, who had made bookzoology into something closely resembling a science. 'Punctusauroids are pretty rare, and to make off with so many punctuations you would need a flock of several hundred. Also, I don't think they would have left the last full stop — that looks to me like a mischievous thief

'Okay,' said the Bellman, 'so what are we to do?'

'The only ready market for stolen punctuation is in the Well.'

'Hmm,' mused the Bellman. 'A Jurisfiction agent down there is about as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral. We need someone to go undercover. Any volunteers?'

'It's my case,' said Vernham Deane. 'I'll go. That is if no one thinks themselves better qualified.'

There was silence.

'Looks like you're it!' enthused the Bellman, writing a note on his clipboard. 'Item six. As you recall, David and Catriona Balfour were Boojummed a few weeks back. Because there can't be much Kidnapped and Catriona without them and Robert Louis Stevenson remains a popular author, the Council of Genres has licensed a pair of A-4 Generics to take their place. They'll be given unlimited access to all Stevenson's books, and I want you all to make them feel welcome.'

There was a murmuring from the collected agents.

'Yes,' said the Bellman with a resigned air, 'I know they'll never be exactly the same but with a bit of luck we should be okay; no one in the Outland noticed when David Copperfield was replaced, now, did they?'

No one said anything.

'Good. Item seven. As you know, I am retiring in two weeks' time and the Council of Genres will need a replacement Bellman. All nominations are to be given direct to the Council for consideration.'

He paused again.

'Item eight. As you all know, Text Grand Central have been working on an upgrade to the Book Operating System for the last fifty years—'

There was a groan from the assembled agents. Clearly this was a matter of some contention. Snell had explained about the ImaginoTransference technology behind books in general, but I had no idea how it worked. Still don't, as a matter of fact.

'Do you know what happened when they tried to upgrade SCROLL?' said Bradshaw. 'The system conflict wiped the entire library at Alexandria — they had to torch the lot to stop it spreading.'

'We knew a lot less about operating systems then, Commander,' replied the Bellman in a soothing voice, 'and you can rest assured that early upgrading problems have not been ignored. Many of us have reservations about the standard version of BOOK that all our beloved works are recorded in, and I think the latest upgrade to BOOK V9 is something that we should all welcome.'

No one said anything. He had our attention.

'Good. Well, I could rabbit on all day but I really feel that it would be better to let WordMaster Libris, all the way from Text Grand Central, tell you the full story. Xavier?'