"I'll remind him," promised Buster. "I'll remind him if I have to break his other leg off."
The whole village had come out onto the square. Everybody was talking, shoving and scattering seeds on the bare earth so that stems might come up and provide soft seating. Children were mixed in underfoot; their parents were pulling them along by their ears or hair to avoid a mix-up. A column of poorly trained ants attempting to drag worker-fly larvae straight across the square were being driven off by the cursing elder. He was asking by whose orders there were ants here, it was a disgrace that's what. Ears and Kandid were suspected, but the matter was not conducive to proof.
Kandid found Barnacle and wanted to talk with him, but failed as the assembly was then declared open and as always the old man crawled forward to speak first. What he spoke about nobody could understand but everybody sat quietly listening and hissed at their scuffling children not to scuffle. Some - those seated most comfortably well away from the sunny spots - fell into a doze.
The old man went on at length about what was not "right" and in what senses this was to be understood. He called for a mass Accession, threatened victories in North and South, cursed the village and, separately, New Village, announced that new detachments of Maidens were everywhere and that neither in the village nor in the New Village was there calm or amalgamation, that all this was a consequence of people forgetting the word "shouldn't" and thinking everything was permitted. Dummy, for instance, was set on going to the City, though nobody had summoned him. The village bore no responsibility for that, seeing as he was foreign, but if it turned out by chance that he was a deadling after all, and such an opinion existed in the village, then nobody knew what would happen, especially as Nava, though of course she was an alien too, had had no children by Dummy, and this was not to be tolerated, yet the elder tolerated it...
Toward the middle of the oration, the elder dozed off as well, but hearing his own name, started and immediately gave a threatening bark: "Hey! No sleeping! You can sleep at home," he said, "that's what houses are for, sleeping in, nobody sleeps on the square, meetings are held on the square. Nobody has ever been allowed to sleep on the square, nobody is allowed and nobody will be." He glanced toward the old man.
The old man gave a satisfied nod. "And so we have our general 'not permitted.' " He smoothed his hair and announced: "A bride has been announced at New Village. And we have a groom, Loudmouth, whom you all know. Stand up. Loudmouth, and show yourself, no better not, you just sit there, everybody knows you anyway. Now we have the question: shall Loudmouth go to New Village or alternatively shall we bring the bride here to the village... No, no. Loudmouth, sit you down, we'll decide this without you ... those sitting next to him keep a good hold on him till the meeting is over. Who has any opinion, let him speak."
