So you proles didn't like it, then?

You would think that anyone would appreciate wise words in a temple of rats. Well, I've already learned to lower my standards. I suppose I just need to lower them a little more. Except that I am too busy at the moment. A fresh crop of crow and magpie babies demand my attention. The old ones scream at me, mobbing, the moment I appear.

Well, let them scream and swoop. The ugly little babies perch on the ledges of windows, looking in with their blank, black eyes. Halibut waits in a black heap. He knows how to open windows. Oh yes.

Vernal stirrings -- who needs them?

Where have I been all winter?  Not here, I can tell you.  This brutish, brainless city does, from time to time, jolly itself into a tepid glow.  Now, as the glaciers shrink, the breakfast-cereal-bar-eaters stretch their wintery legs from ballooning, over loud shorts.  Halibut glares from his cave.  Not for him the balmy airs and vermin-scented breezes of the spring.  Not for him the slave life of Goon and Bhik, tied down with gaudy strings.  I'd rather sniff the stale air than open a window to all that.