The Daily Crow had a full page about the incident of the night before. According to a local minister, the rumpus at the Final Anchor had started as a well-meaning protest against the Children of Ganymede but been taken over by a number of churchgoing 'bully boys, young and old' who were now in grave danger of expulsion from the flock.
'They have been too eager in their attempts to imitate Our Lord confronting the money changers who desecrated Solomon's temple,' declared the minister. 'Not only that, several of the perpetrators happen to be of dubious soundness when it comes to the Gospel. It is necessary to make it a matter of record here that I wonder if some of them even pray.'
For one reason or another the valiant Mog Probert had beaten a retreat from the Final Anchor that night, close on Ved's heels.
'When that lot burst in and set the skin and hair flyin' I had other things in mind than demonstratin' the noble art of self-defence,' he told Ved the next day.
'You had an eager eye out for skirt at the time, no doubt,' said Ved.
Mog grinned.
'Well, I can say that I look forward to a few more run-ins with the pious Ganymede girls. They looked well-blessed in the departments that I'd like to be intimately concerned with, ha ha ha! I'll gladly let them introduce me to a few more of the mysteries of Ganymede if that first bit of tuition is anything to go by....'
'Even if you take that teaching on though, you can still remain a devout C of E parishioner,' joked Ved.
'Of course I can, and High Church at that,' quipped Mog. 'I tell you though, it was devil take the hindmost once those Baptist Holy Rollers came up the stairs.'
'Good for them,' said Ved. 'When it comes to that animal Tad Lubbock, I—'
'Hey, hey!' said Mog. 'You went along there and drank the man's liquor and broke his bread, didn't you? And now you say you've got something agin 'im and the highly respectable organisation that he's frontin'?'
'I'm not joking, Mog,' said Shurston. 'Him and his crew, they've got to be called to account for a lot of things, by Crikey.'
'Are you speaking as one who knows?' asked Mog.
'Never mind that now,' replied Ved. 'Some of those who have been kith and kin to me were sucked in by Lubbock and his crew, that's all. It's one reason why I went along to the Final Anchor. You can't do much agin 'em until you know 'em, you see.'
'True enough,' said Mog. He knew Ved Shurston could show a streak of the proper venom, in fact go berserk on occasion, but this calculating malevolence was new and strangely impressive.
'I should be careful though,' Mog went on. 'Lubbock is a true man of heft and his Gannies are no pussy cats me boyo. They'll be strikin' back at the God Squad with a rod of iron. Unless of course they play the longer game and let it pass because they don't want the stink of the kind of publicity they'll get if they flay the hides off some good old Evangelicals of local repute, see....'
'That Lubbock's got enough of the savour to him of what is under the dragon's tail, and a putrid strain at that. But whatever happens, Mog, my hatred is me own,' said Ved stubbornly. 'And what I'm going to do about it I'm—well, I'm going to do, that's all. Right?'
