The leader of the brigade took offense; the hair on the top of his head stood on end.
“We will punish you!” he said. “We’ll cut off your TV!”
The writer pretended to wipe away tears, and this threw the orang-utan brigade leader into a blind rage. “We can force you to work twenty-four hours on the trot.”
Swidersky shrugged and turned away.
When the orang-utan was out of earshot, one of the monkeys approached the writer. This specimen looked like a gibbon.
“I heard your conversation,” the gibbon rustled into his ear, scratching his heels with his long hands without so much as bending even slightly. “You’re too direct, old chap. You can’t go about things like that here. We’re on the latter stages of evolution, don’t you know.”
The writer thought to himself that this interpretation of th
