JurisTech: Popular contraction of Jurisfiction Technological Division. This R&D company works exclusively for Jurisfiction and is financed by the Council of Genres through Text Grand Central. Due to the often rigorous and specialized tasks undertaken by Prose Resource Operatives, Juris Tech is permitted to build gadgets deemed outside the usual laws of physics—the only department (aside from the SF genre) licensed to do so. The standard item in a PRO’s manifest is the TravelBook (qv), which itself contains other JurisTech designs like the Martin-Bacon Eject-O-Hat, Punctuation Repair Kit and textual sieves of various porosity, to name but a few.

CAT FORMERLY KNOWN AS CHESHIRE,
Guide to the Great Library

THE OFFICES OF Jurisfiction were situated at Norland Park, the house of the Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility. The family kindly lent the ballroom to Jurisfiction on the unspoken condition that Jane Austen books would be an area of special protection.

Norland Park was located within a broad expanse of softly undulating grassland set about with ancient oaks. The evening was drawing on, as it generally did, when we arrived, and wood pigeons cooed from the dovecote. The grass felt warm and comfortable like a heavily underlaid carpet, and the delicate scent of pine needles filled the air.

But all was not perfect in this garden of nineteenth-century prose; as we approached the house, there seemed to be some sort of commotion. A demonstration, in fact—the sort of thing I was used to seeing at home. But this wasn’t a rally about the price of cheese or whether the Whig party were dangerously right-wing and anti-Welsh, nor of whether Goliath had the right to force legislation compelling everyone to eat SmileyBurger at least twice a week. No, this demonstration was one you would expect to find only in the world of fiction.

The Bellman, elected head of Jurisfiction and dressed in his usual 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 Orals, 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 who 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 realized who they were.

“They’re all nursery rhyme characters!” I exclaimed.