John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

Out of his notice, I observed that the supply of goods in the cartons ran out as the receptionist approached. Ex-Chancellor Hector frowned, shrugged, smiled, cleared his throat, and deftly rolled himself a cigarette.

"That's the end, boys," he said briskly. "No more to hand out."

There was a chorus of complaints, but the aides sharply marshaled the supplicants past me into the hall, reminding them to call a final Thank-you-sir as they left. Few did, except mockingly. Me they regarded with expressions of suspicion, contempt, or hostility — a reassuring surprise, considering my mask. One called me a charlatan, another a "square," another a "company man"; they were, it was clear, disaffiliated from the mainstream of New Tammany sentiment, and my heart warmed to them. Indeed, I privately resolved to seek them out, once I'd proclaimed myself, and enlist them among my first Tutees, as they were beyond doubt the goatliest of undergraduates. Mightily tempted to reveal myself, I urged them to wait with their classmates outside, as I had good tidings concerning their friend the Goat-Boy. Naturally they sniffed at this news; the aides rallied them along then, despite their threats to "go limp" if anyone laid a hand on them.

"Flunking ingrates," one aide muttered to me. "We'll see how they holler with no more handouts from the P.-G."

I began to declare to him that their number included, in my opinion, the very salt of the campus, but by this time the receptionist had informed "the P.-G." of my presence, and he came over to me shaking his head.

"Good to see you, G.T.!" he said warmly. His handshake was strong, his tone friendly, but his smile grave. "Everything's going to the Dunce, eh?"

The receptionist excused herself, but Reginald Hector asked her to look in once more on "Miss Virginia in the next room" instead of returning to the entrance-hall, as he feared his daughter was still half-hysterical.

"The things she's been saying…" He scratched his pate ruefully. "And there's always a flunking reporter around, you know." He cast a brief sharp eye at me, wondering no doubt how aware I might be of his daughter's new distress, and how much of her raving was true.

"Naturally Miss Hector's upset," I said. "Most unfortunate business back there in the Library."

"Unfortunate! I'd like to get my hands on that freak of a Goat-Boy!" He seemed unsure of his ground — as I could well imagine he might be, whomever his daughter was presently claiming to be the GILES. Gruffly he thanked me — that is, Bray — for having Certified him earlier in the day: the quotation on his diploma — No class shall pass — - he deemed so apt a summary of his philosophy that he meant to propose it as a motto for his favorite club, the Brotherhood of Independent Men. Rather, he hoped to do so if he had the wherewithal to maintain his own membership in that society, now that his brother had "pulled the rug from under the P.P.F.," and the Executive Secretary's salary with it.

"More of that flunking Goat-Boy's meddling, so I hear," he said crossly. "Not that I think half those rascals deserve a hand-out anyhow! But better dole it out privately than turn New Tammany into a welfare-college, the way Rexford's been doing."

"Your brother's changed his mind about philanthropy?" I asked.

"Changed his mind! He's lost it!" It had always been his own policy, he declared, to be beholden to no man; to look out for himself in order to be able to look out for others. In this he differed from his brother Ira, who gave alms in self-defense, as it were, or to further his own interests. They shared the opinion that the ignorant mass of studentdom by and large deserved its wretched lot; their own example proved that ambition and character could overcome any handicap; but there was no reason, Reginald felt, not to pity one's inferiors. He thought it important that the College administration keep out of the charity-business, lest the worthless masses — already too dependent and lazy — come to think of free board and tuition as their due; and nothing would militate more favorably for Lucius Rexford's sweeping grant-in-aid bill than the curtailment of the Philophilosophical Fund.

I could not help smiling. "Maybe the Goat-Boy will get to Chancellor Rexford, too," I suggested. Reginald Hector declared with a sniff that he'd heard disturbing rumors to just that effect, adding that back in the days of C.R. II such a dangerous subversive would have been shot, at least under his command. Nowadays it was coddle, coddle — and look at the crime-rate, and the drop-out rate, and the illegitimate birthrate, and the varsity situation!

"The Goat-Boy won't meddle any more," one of the aides said from the hallway, and reported what he'd just heard from the crowd outside: that I had left the impostor EATen in WESCAC's Belly.

"No!" Reginald Hector exclaimed happily, and slapped me on the back. "Why didn't You say so, doggone You!" I confirmed that the false Grand Tutor was no longer a menace to studentdom, and explained the object of my visit: a final endorsement of my Passage and Grand-Tutorship now that the pretender had been put down.

"Gladly, gladly! Give Your card here, sir: I'll be glad to okay it!" He fished for a pen, found he'd given his away, and borrowed one from an aide. "I knew he was a phony — GILES indeed! As if there ever was such a thing!"

I smiled and handed him my Assignment-sheet. Within the circle of its motto, I observed, Bray had written Passage is Failure — - alluding, I supposed, to those Certifications of his which I'd shown to be false. The presumption annoyed me until I remembered his dubious claim to accessoryhood back in the Belly, which I'd not had time to consider and evaluate.

"Mm-hm," the ex-Chancellor said, holding it at various distances from his eyes. Perhaps he couldn't make it out at all; in any case he only glanced at it hastily, nodding all the while. "Oh, yes, this is quite in order. Hum! I can sign it anywhere, I suppose?"

Calling his attention to the seventh and final task, I observed that no signatures on the Assignment-list itself seemed called for, only on the matriculation- (i.e., ID-) card — which too there was apparently no need for him to sign, only to inspect.

"Sure, sure," he agreed at once, as if he'd known that fact as well as his own name, but had forgot it for half a second. "Unless You want me to initial it just for form's sake…"

Inspecting the card myself as he talked, I saw that Bray had printed WESCAC in the "Father" blank and signed his own name as "Examiner." I borrowed Reginald Hector's borrowed pen, scratched through the name George I'd signed earlier, and after it, on the same line, printed GILES.

"Keep it, keep it," he said of the pen, and took the card. Instantly he reddened. "What's this?"

I offered the pen to its first owner, who, however, stepped back with a little embarrassed sign.

"Something wrong?" I asked the ex-Chancellor. "Here — initial it after my title, if you like."

"I see," he said, drawing the words out as if he'd caught on to a tease. "You examined Yourself! Why not? And You're going to call Yourself the GILES because You are the Grand Tutor." He scribbled RH at the end of the line. "Don't blame You a bit! Darned clever idea, in fact — help put an end to that Goat-Boy nonsense. There You are, sir!"

Retrieving the two documents I said, "I am the GILES, Mr. Hector."

"Of course You are!" he cried indignantly. "You've got every right to be! I was trying to tell that daughter of mine just a while ago, when Stacey brought her in all upset: she's got to get that nonsense out of her head — "

"That she's my mother?" I interrupted. "She is, Mr. Hector. I'm the real GILES, that you put in the tapelift twenty-one years ago."