'O wise and Perly King,' began Jo, feeling somewhat foolish, 'are you in a position, your majesty, to contribute anything of import to the quest for the lost magic golden closing curly bracket?'

The monarch's costume of costume jewellery glittered. He spoke in a curious mixture of regular expressions and rhyming slang that, after a moment's thought, you can see is inevitable.

/(Lordy ){3,}\. Would you (Adam( and( Trevor )? Eve)?|believe) it\? Well, my little Pascalian, can you name to me the Twelve\?/'

[Hint: At least three occurrences of 'Lordy' required. 'Adam and Trevor Eve' is an alternative for 'believe', and the second part, starting at 'and', is made optional by... oh, never mind.]

Fortunately, Jo knew her basic regexps.

'The twelve tribes of curly brackets are: Awk, BCPL, C, C#, C++, D, Java, JavaScript, Objective C, Perl (so please your majesty), PHP and That C-like macro language that programmer's editors support but which nobody much uses.'

/Very good, little else-dangler\. Although you have (Brahms( and ovarian cyst)?|missed) one\. What about ICI\?/

'A manufacturer of paint and weedkiller, your majesty.'

/(Ha)+, well spoken, petite definer of local functions! But you do well to remember the tribes of the (Elizabeth( Hurley)?|curly) (tennis ( racquets)?|brackets), for the missing artefact is surely hidden among them\./'

'So how do I find which tribe has got it?'

/Good question, my strongly (stereo)?typed mouselette. I cannot answer\. But there is a geezer who knows\. He is clever, but I find his attitude a bit Waterloo( and City)?\. Perhaps I had better give you a word of power\.\.\./

* * *

'((What ith it that you want, thmall-brain?))'

Oh great, thought Jo, another maniac with a speech impediment.

'Oh very, very wise one, I have heard so much about you ...'

'(Yeth, yeth. Get (((on))) with it.)'

'I seek the lost magic golden closing curly bracket of the Background Dæmon of Life.'

'(((((Curly bracket?)))) I havth nothing to do with (((curly))) bracketh. The Printh of Python may knowth about ((them)). Now, thtand thtill, tho I can bore you to death.)'

Jo decided it was time to wield her Word of Power.

'Reddit!', she cried.

'(((Aaaaargh!)) Don't thay that word! There ith nothing wrong with Lithp! There ith nothing wrong with Lithp! They juth dinth underthand the library, which ith better now anyway. Lithp ith (((perfect)))! Lithp ith (((all-conquering)))! All bow down and worthip it!)'

Jo tiptoed away.

* * *

'Excuse me; is this the palace of the prince of Python?'

'I've told you once.'

'Um. Ok. Oh mighty Python prince, please can you answer me one question regarding the lost magic golden closing curly bracket?

'I didn't expect a kind of

Spanish Inquisition!'

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

The Sage was waiting for Jo when she returned through the Hash-Pragma gateway to other languages.

'Ah, there you are,' he said. 'You look tired. An early night for you, I think; you are off to interview the Vizier of VB.NET first thing, then on to the down-and-going incredibly sweary recluse of Ruby on Rails, then...'

Jo interrupted him. 'I've had an idea. I don't suppose we could simply enclose the whole thing in a pair of (* bracket star *) comment delimiters?' she asked. ®

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