B553 <=> B555 (BTG XXXI Last sojourn to Earth, p. 554)

“On account of this new word of theirs, even our Ahoon, in spite of his having an incomparably more normal presence, and being clothed with a being-reason of higher quality, had while we were there a very disagreeable, even an almost idiotic misunderstanding.

“As for the rest, it will in my opinion be much better if he tells you about it himself.”

Having said this, Beelzebub addressed himself to Ahoon in the following words:

“Tell us, old man, how this then happened and what made you for several days the whole time ‘Skoohiatchiny’ and ‘Tsirikooakhtz,’ or as the three-brained beings of the planet Earth would say, made you just ‘grumble’ and be ‘irritable’ like your friend there, Dame Bess.”

To this Ahoon, again imitating the style of Beelzebub and this time even his very intonation, began to relate as follows:

“This misunderstanding happened to me owing to the following cause:

“During this sixth visit of ours to the planet Earth, just towards the very end, we had to exist, by the way, for a little while also in the capital of those same German beings who, as His Reverence condescended to say, invented just this word, accursed for me, ‘doctor.’

“In the hotel where we had the place of our existence, next to my room, or as is said there in the ‘number’ next to mine, there existed a very sympathetic pair of beings who had only recently completed the sacrament of the Union of the Active with the Passive for the purpose of serving the Great All-Universal Trogoautoegocratic process for the prolongation of their generation, or, as they themselves would say, had ‘been married,’ and they were still considered ‘newlywed.’

“Well, with this young couple I accidentally became acquainted in the house of some friends of mine, after which this couple often began to invite me to their room for what is called there a ‘cup-of-tea’; at other times I even myself, without their invitation, used to drop in on them in order to shorten the wearisome ‘German’ evenings.