The librarianeers tear whooping through the reference section, plundering atlases, grabbing haphazard Britannicas, snapping the OED from its pedestal chain. Commander Zouave struggles with the ropes that bind him to the circulation desk. “I don’t care about the indignity we’ve suffered,” he fumes to First Mate Sibwell, “it’s the sacrilege. The sacrilege.”

After the rescue, Sibwell glumly assesses the state of the stacks. “It’s not good, sir,” he says. “They got into the Deweys too.”

“All that knowledge, loose among the riffraff,” mutters Zouave. “Who knows what they’ll do with it?”

Away in their black Bookmobile, the pirates are reading, reading.