“I’m very pleased to meet you,” said Milo, not sure whether or not he was pleased at all. “I think I’m lost. Can you help me please?”
“Don’t say ‘think’,” said one sitting on his shoe, for the one on his shoulder had fallen asleep. “It’s against the law.” And he yawned and fell off to sleep, too.
“No one’s allowed to think in the Doldrums,” continued a third, beginning to doze off. And as each one spoke, he fell off to sleep and another picked up the conversation with hardly any interruption.
“Don’t you have a rule book? It’s local ordinance 175389–J.”
Milo quickly pulled the rule book from his pocket, opened to the page, and read, “Ordinance 175389–J: It shall be unlawful, illegal, and unethical to think, think of thinking, surmise, presume, reason, meditate, or speculate while in the Doldrums. Anyone breaking this law shall be severely punished!”
“That’s a ridiculous law,” said Milo, quite indignantly. “Everybody thinks.”
“We don’t,” shouted the Lethargarians all at once.
“And most of the time you don’t,” said a yellow one sitting in a daffodil. “That’s why you’re here. You weren’t thinking, and you weren’t paying attention either. People who don’t pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums.” And with that he toppled out of the flower and fell snoring into the grass.
Milo couldn’t help laughing at the little creature’s strange behaviour, even though he knew it might be rude.
“Stop that at once,” ordered the fawn one clinging to his trousers. “Laughing is against the law. Don’t you have a rule book? It’s local ordinance 574381–W.”
Opening the book again, Milo found Ordinance 574381–W: “In the Doldrums, laughter is frowned upon and smiling is permitted only on alternate Thursdays. Violaters shall be dealt with most harshly.”
“Well, if you can’t laugh or think, what can you do?” asked Milo.
“Anything as long as it’s nothing, and everything as long as it isn’t anything,” explained another. “There’s lots to do; we have a very busy schedule –
“At 8 o’clock we get up, and then we spend
“From 8.00 to 9.00 daydreaming.
“From 9.00 to 9.30 we take our early midmorning nap.
“From 9.30 to 10.30 we dawdle and delay.
“From 10.30 to 11.30 we take our late early morning nap.
“From 11.30 to 12.00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.
“From 1.00 to 2.00 we linger and loiter.
“From 2.00 to 2.30 we take our early afternoon nap.
“From 2.30 to 3.30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.
“From 3.30 to 4.00 we take our early late afternoon nap.
“From 4.00 to 5.00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.
“From 6.00 to 7.00 we dilly-dally.
“From 7.00 to 8.00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9.00 we waste time.
“As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we’d never get nothing done.”
“You mean you’d never get anything done,” corrected Milo.
“We don’t want to get anything done,” snapped another angrily; “we want to get nothing done, and we can do that without your help.”
“You see,” continued another in a more conciliatory tone, “it’s really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?”
“I might as well,” thought Milo. “That’s where I seem to be going anyway.”
“Tell me,” he yawned, for he felt ready for a nap now himself, “does everyone here do nothing”
“Everyone but the terrible watchdog,” said two of them, shuddering in chorus. “He’s always sniffing around to see that nobody wastes time. A most unpleasant character.”
“The watchdog?” said Milo quizzically.
“THE WATCHDOG,” shouted another, fainting from fright, for racing down the road barking furiously and kicking up a great cloud of dust was the very dog of whom they had been speaking.
“RUN!”
“WAKE UP!”
“RUN!”
“HERE HE COMES!”
“THE WATCHDOG!”
Great shouts filled the air as the Lethargarians scattered in all directions and soon disappeared entirely.
“R-R-R-G-H-R-O-R-R-H-F-F,” exclaimed the watchdog as he dashed up to the car, loudly puffing and panting.
Milo’s large eyes opened wide, for there in front of him was a large dog with a perfectly normal head, four feet, and a tail – and the body of a loudly ticking alarm clock.
“What are you doing here?” growled the watchdog.
“Just killing time,” replied Milo apologetically. “You see—”
“KILLING TIME!” roared the dog – so furiously that his alarm went off. “It’s bad enough wasting time without killing it.” And he shuddered at the thought. “Why are you in the Doldrums anyway – don’t you have anywhere to go?”
“I was on my way to Dictionopolis when I got stuck here,” explained Milo. “Can you help me?”
“Help you! You must help yourself,” the dog replied, carefully winding himself with his left hind leg. “I suppose you know why you got stuck.”
“I suppose I just wasn’t thinking,” said Milo.
“PRECISELY,” shouted the dog as his alarm went off again. “Now you know what you must do.”
