The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Page B

hope you managed to rectify that a bit.”
    “Oh yes, well, I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it’s still an improvement.”
    “And what does it say now?” asked Arthur.
    “Mostly harmless,”
admitted Ford with a slightly embarrassed cough.
    “Mostly harmless!”
shouted Arthur.
    “What was that noise?” hissed Ford.
    “It was me shouting,” shouted Arthur.
    “No! Shut up!” said Ford. “I think we’re in trouble.”
    “
You
think we’re in trouble!”
    Outside the door were the clear sounds of marching foot-steps.
    “The Dentrassis?” whispered Arthur.
    “No, those are steel-tipped boots,” said Ford.
    There was a sharp ringing rap on the door.
    “Then who is it?” said Arthur.
    “Well,” said Ford, “if we’re lucky it’s just the Vogons come to throw us in to space.”
    “And if we’re unlucky?”
    “If we’re unlucky,” said Ford grimly, “the captain might be serious in his threat that he’s going to read us some of his poetry first. . . .”

Chapter 7
    Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning” four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been “disappointed” by the poem’s reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve-book epic entitled
My Favorite Bathtime Gurgles
when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leaped straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.
    The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England, in the destruction of the planet Earth.
    Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz smiled very slowly. This was done not so much for effect as because he was trying to remember the sequence of muscle movements. He had had a terribly therapeutic yell at his prisoners and was now feeling quite relaxed and ready for a little callousness.
    The prisoners sat in Poetry Appreciation chairs—strapped in. Vogons suffered no illusions as to the regard their works were generally held in. Their early attempts at composition had been part of a bludgeoning insistence that they be accepted as a properly evolved and cultured race, but now the only thing that kept them going was sheer bloody-mindedness.
    The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect’s brow, and slid round the electrodes strapped to his temples. These were attached to a battery of electronic equipment—imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dumpers—all designed to heighten the experience of the poem and make sure that not a single nuance of the poet’s thought was lost.
    Arthur Dent sat and quivered. He had no idea what he was in for, but he knew that he hadn’t liked anything that had happened so far and didn’t think things were likely to change.
    The Vogon began to read—a fetid little passage of his own devising.
    “Oh freddled gruntbuggly . . .”
he began. Spasms wracked Ford’s body—this was worse than even he’d been prepared for.
    “? . . . thy micturations are to me/As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a
lurgid bee.”
    “Aaaaaaarggggghhhhhh!” went Ford Prefect, wrenching his head back as lumps of pain thumped through it. He could dimly see beside him Arthur lolling and rolling in his seat. He clenched his teeth.
    “Groop I implore thee,”
continued the merciless Vogon,
“my
foonting turlingdromes.”
    His voice was rising to a horrible pitch of impassioned stridency.
“And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,/Or
I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if