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內文摘錄（中英對照版）
Episode 5 Appealing to
the Peelers
In which almost everyone is in deep doo-doos
Now, I’m sure it’s not true
nowadays—though some of you are probably thinking ’He’s just saying that’—but,
in Eddie’s day, most police officers seem to have been sent on a special course
called Getting Hold of the Wrong End of the Stick. If it was possible to misunderstand
something that someone—a suspect, in particular—was saying, then a peeler/police
officer would take the wrong meaning.
Say, for example, you’re a suspect and you say ’ Good morning’ to a peeler, the
peeler will immediately ask: ‘What’s so good about this particular morning, ay?
Done something to make yourself feel particularly good, now, have ya?’ and you
know full well that the ‘Something’ he’s thinking of is something illegal, like
stealing a diamond the size of a plover’s egg or kicking a chicken, and that he’s
hoping to nail you for doing it, simply because you were being nice and polite
and saying ‘Good morning’. For, as well as getting hold of the wrong end of the
proverbial stick—which is like a real stick but, somehow, less sticky—peelers
were particularly fond of nailing people.
Now ‘nailing’ in this context doesn’t actually mean nailing as in ‘nailing a bookcase
together’ (or even on your won), or even nailing as in ’nailing poor unfortunate
people to crosses’ (as the ancient Roman authorities like to do), but ‘nailing
you for a crime’ or ‘pinging a crime on you’. In other words, being able to say
‘You dunnit’ (even if you haven’t done it, but it’ d be a bonus if you had).
Today people say: ‘You can never find a police officer when you need one’, unless,
of course, they have found a police officer when they needed one, in which case,
they’ll probably say nothing. In Eddie’s day, people would probably have said:
’What’s that funny man in the funny hat and the funny uniform?’ and pointed, laughed
or thrown stones. Or all three.
第五集 向警察討饒
[幾乎人人倒大楣]
在艾迪那個時代，警察喜歡想歪。現在的警察喜不喜歡亂想，我就不確定了-- 有些讀者可能會覺得我想講的其實是「現在的警察也好不到哪裡去。」從前的警察好像都上過一堂「歪理」課，所以碰到老百姓的時候──特別是嫌犯──警察抓到可以誤解的機會時一定不放過。
假設你是嫌犯，你對警察說「早安」，警察會馬上問：「今天早上為何特別安？是不是做了什麼事，所以才覺得特別安心，說啊？」而警察說的「什麼事」，八成是指違法的行為，例如偷走了水鳥蛋大的鑽石或踹了小雞一腳，所以希望以這個罪嫌抓你回警察局，而你只不過是客氣地向警察說聲早安而已。警察最會往歪的地方去想了。警察同樣拿手的是「釘」人。
如果以英文的「釘」（nail）字當動詞來造句，可以寫成「釘成了一個書架」（不巧的是，「釘成了書架」也有「和人合作釘了書架」的解釋），也可以造句成「他們把不幸的可憐人釘在十字架上」（古羅馬的警察喜歡這樣釘人），卻也同樣可以造句成「警察因某某罪名而釘你」或「警察把某某罪名釘在你身上」。如果你被釘上了，等於是聽見警察說「是你幹的」（即使你沒做壞事也一樣。如果你真的做了壞事，警察這次就釘對人了，應該記一支嘉獎）。
現代人常說：「需要警察的時候一個也不來。」不過這種情況有個例外。如果需要警察的時候警察真的來了，這時習慣講這種話的人可能就不吭一聲。艾迪那個時代的人習慣說，「那個穿怪制服戴怪帽子的怪人是誰啊？」然後或指著警察，或是嘲笑警察，或是對警察丟石頭，或者指著警察笑著對他們丟石頭。
編按：上述內容僅供參考，本書非中英對照，書內不含英文原文。
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