behind them suddenly demanded: “What are you doing here?”
they all jumped out of their skins.
They turned round and there was Trupacius from the Machinists' school – the one who had played chess with Amartia. He had brought his friends along, and so our four protagonists found themselves surrounded.
“What did you do to the book?” one of them asked. “Butt out. It's nothing to do with you,” Muko responded.
The Machinists were not so easily discouraged. They began looking more closely at the page the book was open at and one of them said mockingly:
“Well, well, well. So you're going to solve the RIDDLE
are you?” and he laughed heartily.
All the Machinists were now making fun of Muko and his friends. Then they went one step further:
“We'll take the book off you before you get hurt,” they said, and one of them grabbed it, closed it with a clap that produced a great cloud of dust, and lifted it onto his shoulder.
The Machinists then departed, laughing and cracking