"You'll find, laddy boy, that this is a strange world we live in with many paradoxes that to Grundy and me, demand an explanation. It wasn't too long ago that we were like you and found only elderly ladies attractive. But you know, as soon as we found out that the Thirty like their women young, we too began to find something vastly exciting in youth."
So alarmed that he dare not continue to look at Bowdler, Jimmy looked around the room trying to find something to change the subject, some object on which to focus. On a book shelf nearby he saw one of his childhood favorites, and grabbed it with a feeling of relief.
It was a copy of Father Goose. He ran his eye over the first poem and drew from the verse of Jack and Jill the knowledge that the world had not gone insane. There, it was just as he remembered it,
"Jack and Jill went up the hill
To ..... a .... of water.
Jack fell down and broke his .....
And Jill came ........ after."
He riffled through the pages as Bowdler went on talking. On page ten was another favorite,
"Little Polly Flinders