Oneba tells of an occasion which found him riding the trench, pedaling himself, in his fabulous little pedalcar. As he went along, so the story goes, he was set upon by a band oftrochilics, their attendant dogs, and their teetotums. They did nothing to him that would snuff his wick at once, and when he fainted from the awful agonies they inflicted upon him they would revive him with cups of cold trench water, befouled and stinky, and it seeped horribly through his wiry red beard, and then commence new and more ingenious tortures. When it seemed he could bear no more, the younger members of the band got about him, smoking pissweed in bamboo pipes, laughing at Oneba’s apish shrieking, and fed pine needles and cones to a slow fire smouldering on his stomach.

The next day and the day after that Oneba supplied the fun for the camp. A comely young trochilic woman came to him and tried to make him open his mouth, as she unbuckled the straps of her khakies. Oneba realized her purpose was evil, and so refused. At this she took a half-brick lying by and one by one knocked his teeth in, smashing down the dentation of the upper jaw. Then she took a rough pair of wooden pincers, used them to grasp his tongue at the roots, dragged him about the place, convulsed with mirth at his torment and his attempts to scream out.