They stared at one another until a loud belch rent the air. It was Falstaff.

'I have lived,' he said, getting to his feet with a great deal of effort, 'through much in my time; some good, some bad – I was witness to the great vowel shift, and remember fondly those better days when puns, fat people and foreigners were funny beyond all. I saw the novel rise and the epic poem fall, I remember when you could get blind drunk, eat yourself ill and still have change for a whore out of sixpence. I remember when water would kill you and spirits would save you; I remember—'

'Is there a point to all this?' asked Libris testily.

'Ah!' replied Falstaff, trying to figure out where he was going with his speech. 'Oh, yes. I was there for the much-heralded Version 4 upgrade in 1841. "Change the way we read for ever," quoth the Council of Genres. And what happened? The Deep Text Crash. Almost everything by Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles gone for ever – and we created grammasites.'

'It was never proven that Version 4 created the grammasites, Sir John—'

'Come, come, Libris, have you dried your brain? I was there. I saw it. I know.'

Libris put up his hands.

'I didn't come here to argue, Sir John – I just want to stick to the facts. Anyhow, UltraWord™ is incompatible with grammasites; text will be locked – they'll have nothing to feed on.'

'You hope, sir.'

'We know,' replied Libris firmly, adding more slowly: 'Listen, Version 4 was a big mistake, we freely admit that – which is why we have taken so long to design and rigorously test UltraWord™. It is no small boast that we call it the Ultimate Reading Experience.'

He paused for a moment.

'It's here to stay, ladies and gentlemen – so get used to it.'

He expected another attack from Falstaff but King Hal's old friend had sat down and was shaking his head sadly. No one else added anything.

Libris took a step back and looked at the Bellman, who tingled his bell.

'Well, thank you all for listening to WordMaster Libris' presentation, and I would like to thank him for coming here today to tell us all about it.'

He started to clap his hands and we joined in – with the notable exceptions of Falstaff and Bradshaw.

'Presentation booklets will be available shortly,' said the Bellman. 'Individual assignments will be given out in ten minutes. And remember: let's be careful out there. That's it. Session's over.'

And he tingled his bell once more.

Libris stepped down from the dais and melted away before Bradshaw had a chance to question him further. Miss Havisham rested her hand on his shoulder. Bradshaw was the only man to whom I had ever seen Miss Havisham show any friendliness at all. Born of a long working association, I think.