We should have opened this article with grandiloquent and didactic appeal to modern youth, but the words elude us.

The Willem Pshaw trial, presided by venerable judge Anreas Cox, took place in the pompous town hall building of New City in the presence of twelve jurors, media representatives and bespectacled spectators, filling up the Big Colonial Hall on Lance McGuiver Square. The day was sunny. The month was May.

At first sight neither Willem Pshaw’s appearance, nor his occupation and way of life appeared to be that of a criminal. Those of you who remember the scandalous photos can effortlessly recreate in imagination the figure of a medium height, stooping, frail man with thinning hair and convex lenses of his old-fashioned oculars. In questionnaires, under “Occupation” headings, he used to put in “Writer” with a shameless persistency.

To justify such a blasphemy he provided a list of opuses, printed by a number of publishing houses, in which his name appeared on the cover above (otherwise – under) the book’s title. Some books boasted a hardcover (with the graphics by Zoe Moore, Elka Archibald and P.P. Iranga). Others, of pocket book stature, took pride in bountiful editions. Brought together by diligent constable Peters, and placed on the shelf next to each other, they constituted Exhibit A.

In the course of a few years Willem Pshaw could have been considered a relatively popular author, releasing from under his plume one-two concoctions a year and enjoying the spotlight of readers’ affection. The scoff might have gone on forever, were it not for the attentive eye and alert conscience of certain Floyd Carbach.

With the respect to the folk’s wisdom, let us remind that still waters (obviously having in mind none other but Willem Pshaw) still run deep.

Possessing irrefutable facts Floyd Carbach accused Willem Pshaw of plagiarism. The ensued investigation and trial, however, uncovered that Carbach opened an abscess much more pernicious than harmless acquisition of intellectual property. As was stated by the Prosecution, the serpent Pshaw not only placed his name were it didn’t belong, but used his very life to demonstrate an impudent contempt for his compatriots.

Carbach began his speech with the toddlers’ books review and presented before His Honor and members of the Jury “Adventures of the Grasshopper” (would-be authored by Pshaw) and a wonderful “Lone Ant-ling Travels” by Norris Houser. Skillfully emphasizing the accents and emitting radiance towards the media, he took apart and analyzed the above works. In both, he noted, the main character is a small insect of male gender. In both the main character, by virtue of self-assertive confidence, runs numerous risks and hardships, passes the tests of Nature and overcomes the threats from insect-haters and oversize beasts, before he, matured and grown wiser, manages to find a way home. This apparently was not the only similarity between two books.

They say that in response to the accusation Pshaw only shrugged his shoulders with deliberate indifference. Meanwhile Carbach went on.

- Whatever book of the so called writer Pshaw we open, our bewilderment strikes against the repetition (often veiled) of motives and incentives we find in the works of renowned and respected authors. Let us open a random page: “…five year old Trinidad in short pants with suspenders and a checkered shirt was building a tower with his set of colored blocks..!” Here, in front of me, you can see a pile of references to other books in which under-aged characters are, firstly, clothed in pants (short, long, new, torn) and shirts (checkered, striped, sleeveless etc.), and, secondly, most of them are playing these or other games (domino, toy soldiers, hide and seek), replaced by Pshaw with a set of construction blocks. His character grows older to become an adult. Let’s ask ourselves what happens in other books, whose ideas he is so blatantly mimicking? You are right! They also grow old! Other characters get married; become famous artists, scientists, failures. So do his! Other books present dilemmas of some nature. So do his! We do not find a single original idea! The plot itself, details, thoughts are plucked out from different sources with an obvious intention to conceal his criminal plagiarism! And those rare cases, when we were unable to locate the origin of his “inspiration”, don’t deny the defendant’s guilt, but rather prove that Willem Pshaw was thoroughly and skillfully hiding footprints, clearly realizing unlawful nature of his so called creativity!

Presenting a number of examples to illustrate this point and having conquered the audience’s trust, Floyd Carbach went on to the new evidence.

- Someone may raise an objection, - he proclaimed, keeping his left hand in a pocket and making animated gestures with his right one, - and insist that the number of literary plots is limited and repetitions are inevitable. The uniqueness, those ill-advocates would say, comes from style. Instead of arguing let us carefully examine Pshaw’s style. First of all, it catches the eye that he employs a lot of customary lexical structures, commonly referred to as sentences. As a rule they comprise a noun, a verb, often – predicates, now and then – adjectives, occasionally – adverbial participle and gerunds, sporadically – pronouns. What else do we see there? Direct speech. An abundance of punctuation marks. Maybe he is decent enough to come up with a handful of new elements? Absolutely not! Let us dig deeper and analyze his vocabulary. And here we are up to a profound shock. It turns out that all Pshaw’s work doesn’t contain a single word not previously used by other authors. While you digest that flagrant fact, let me repeat – NOT A SINGLE WORD! We carried out a huge task to literally plough through thousands of pages. Such terms as “joy” (weak, strong and adjective declensions), “to walk” (in different conjugations), “beautiful” (in dative, accusative, ablative and other cases), “the fate” (singular and plural), “God” (only singular), “fool”, “shame”, “fig”, “love”, “cat”, “cot”, “cut”, “kit” – all of those are copied by Pshaw from renowned writers, newspaper articles or folktales. Another commonality we come across is that he steals not just words, but phrases and even complete sentences. “Bright eyes”, “Divine inspiration”, “Tit for tat”… The list goes on and on. And with a particular sneer, he sneaks in “mock”, “taunt”, “scoff”, “twit”. Do we have spell out to the respected audience who he has in mind? We were fortunate to uncover some secret phrases, comprised of seemingly innocent words scattered here and there in different paragraphs. At times we had to restore the insults letter by letter! Some results are so blasphemous that we do not dare to repeat them out loud.

In the folder presented before the Judge, Carbach highlighted some willful patterns entwined by Pshaw into his scribbles. For example:

“THE boy smiled” (Lost in July, page 14),
“Don’t JUDGE a man by his appearance” (Trail of True Treaties, page 129),
“IS it AN eagle? – Asked Little Jill” (Lost in July, page 33),
Adventures of the Gr-ASS-hopper (The title, cover page) and
“Do you see that HOLE in the ground?” (Lost in July, page 87).

Whispering, so only His Honor could hear him, Carbach assembled the hidden message, asserting that nothing but desire to protect the society permits him to unearth such affront.

He was about to go through more profane instances, but Judge Cox called for an immediate recess. Having returned, he announced that, in order to spare the public from potential insults, the Court denies the accused the right to speak. The microphone on the defendant’s desk was promptly removed and Willem Pshaw helplessly looked at his lawyer.

- The allegations are unfair, - the sleek attorney ventured in, not without a shade of irony. – He cannot steal anything. He is so clean, that he washes his hands before he goes to bathroom.

The witness for prosecution tossed off a glass of water, stepped forward and continued.

He called the Court’s attention to the fact that the names of Pshaw’s characters were not invented either. Carbach managed to convince the Jury in their origins. Some names – the record passed around – were taken from the lists of regional chess tournament participants in Antwerp, spring of 1926; the Portuguese national soccer team, season of 1956; others – plucked out of community news, published by local papers; election campaigns, etc. To foul the trail Pshaw used to take a given name of one real person and a family name of someone else, in hope that such guile would mask the dirty truth of plagiarism.

It was getting more and more apparent that the accused’ chances for salvation grow thinner with every exhibit. And then Carbach came up with a killer argument.

- Not only, - he said, - Willem Pshaw gibed at us in his writings. All his life presents nothing but a continuous mockery at decent people. Not a single unique episode! He was born (as was our respected Judge, for instance) in the family of his parents. But, whereas His Honor – to take a reputable example – had a brother and two sisters, Pshaw was emphatically a lone child, getting all of the parental warmth and attention, as if showing off his superiority. Not having the resolve to openly admit his arrogance and ridiculing those who had trouble with school subjects (alas, most of us), he exaggeratedly became an A-student. After school Willem picked up a plume, making fun of deep and thoughtful writers. Anyone, finding oneself next to him during a meal, would be shocked by his sham of etiquette (knife, fork, napkin), which Pshaw employed while taking care of a woodcock or a pineapple. And his very appearance - round-shouldered back, thin disheveled hair, narrow eyes – present nothing but a grotesque caricature of a decent man.

- And finally, with a particular aversion, I have to point out moral qualities of this monster. In front of a respected assembly, in a court, facing our esteemed Judge, worthy members of Jury, media, stage lights and public, he had enough impudence to show up completely naked!

What followed resembled a bomb explosion. Everyone was yelling and stamping their feet. A few ladies fainted. A few glass rims crackled. The Judge wrathfully gaveled the court to order. He demanded the accused be escorted to a separate room and examined to confirm this fact of the flagrant disrespect for the Law.

After a few minutes of absence, the constable brought Pshaw back into the court room and announced that, indeed, after careful examination under layers of outer clothing and underwear, the subject was found bare as a baby. The verdict now became obvious.

In a concise announcement, the Judge found it necessary to point out circumstances of no small importance: the accused was not only guilty, but insolently insisted on his innocence, which called for much more severe punishment.

And now, after so many years passed, the story has found its conclusion. Not adjusting his attitude and not repenting of his errors, Willem Pshaw shamelessly expired in jail, with this very fact parodying the tragic fate of unjustly incarcerated Lance McGuiver, minion of our nation and hero of two revolutions.