John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"Tell them that!"

I bent close to his ear. "Listen, Old Man: forget what I told you both times before. It was mistaken advice."

He glittered his eyes. "Swindled me, did you? I figured you for a sharper! What's your line this time?"

I smiled and bade him good evening.

"Hold on!" he called after me. "Don't you think these rapscallions'll start right in once you've gone? What kind of help is that? You owe me!"

It was indeed evident that at least some of the indigents only waited my withdrawal to resume their molestations — and a very few, of course, had never really left off. But though I'd deemed it flunkèd, in West Campus anyhow, not to assist him, I also recognized the final futility of assistance, and so tarried no longer.

"Wait!" he cried more desperately. "It's earlier than you think; I can tell by the moonshadows! It's only quarter till ten!"

Sure enough, Tower Clock sounded the three-quarter melody as he spoke, and if the coming hour was indeed ten, it was not so late as I'd have supposed. But that fact was of no importance to me.

"Ha!" the student leader exclaimed. "Hear that? Quarter till! Much obliged, old man!" And laughing at their adversary's inadvertent gift, which it plainly chagrined him to have bestowed, they left him in peace, for the time being at least — except one small faction opposed to private charity and another to the forcible extortion of information, both of whom now laid on with their placards.

"Aren't you going to re-advise him?" Stoker demanded sarcastically.

I knew what reply to make; but just then the Great-Mall streetlights — those not burned out earlier in the evening — flared momentarily, and I saw Reginald Hector, flanked by aides and receptionist, striding towards his brother's bench. I stepped between them.

"You!" the ex-Chancellor cried, and his surprise at the sight of me quickly turned to irritation. "Look out of my way, boy; I got to save Ira from those beggars!"

"Your brother can't really be helped, Grandpa," I declared. "His case is hopeless."

"Nuts," he said, pushing past me. "That's no-win talk. Nothing's impossible!"

"Check," the receptionist affirmed. "Up and at 'em, P.-G."

"You have some begging of your own to do, is that it?" My gibe fetched him up, though I knew it to be no more than half true. He ordered his aides to proceed to Ira's rescue, directing them with his slinged arm, and then turned to me like a professor-general to a wayward freshman recruit, his chin thrust dangerously forth.

"I withdraw the remark, sir," I said, before he could speak. "Your brother Ira can't pass, but I do have some final advice for you. If you want it."

"Hmp!" He glared at me squint-eyed for a moment, stroking his jaw. His aides, having driven off Ira's three or four lingering molesters, found themselves beset now by the whole original company of demonstrators, almost united in their opposition to uniformed intervention.

"Contingency Three-A?" the receptionist called.

"Affirmative," said the P.-G., and at her direction the aides began issuing articles of cold-weather clothing, warm though ill-fitting, to the demonstrators.

"Three-A Sub One!" Grandfather barked. At once the receptionist offered to deputize the bearded student leader as an assistant aide, or field supervisor of P.P.F. disbursements, at a high salary. He hesitated, considered the jeers of his out-of-classmates, but finally accepted the post, protesting to his fellows that one had to see the undergraduate revolution in its larger perspective, if one was not to be after all an ivory-tower naïf. "Even Sakhyan — " he started to explain.

"Three-A Sub Two!" the ex-Chancellor shouted triumphantly. His receptionist whispered something into the new aide's ear, whereupon he exchanged his soiled-sheepskin jacket for a heavy olive topcoat with epaulets, bestowing the fleece upon Ira Hector. The students booed.

"Losers weepers!" Ira cackled. "Sauve qui peut! Possession is nine points of the law!"

"Keep your advice, boy," Grandfather told me proudly. "I'll get to Commencement Gate on my own two feet! Beholden to none!"

I made no objection. The students now were pelting their former spokesman with the gold cufflinks, desk-calendars, and ball-point pens distributed among them by the aides, and Reginald Hector went to issue fresh directives for this contingency.

"Tower Hall," I said to Stoker.

He twitched his mouth. "I'll bet you didn't have any advice for the P.-G."

"Better hurry," I suggested, climbing into the sidecar. "It's not getting any earlier."

He started the motor, but deliberately tarried, watching the ex-Chancellor efficiently put down the demonstrators.

"Why didn't you Certify him, if he's passed?"

"I didn't say he was passed."

He grinned. "So Reg is as flunked as Ira."

I smiled. "I didn't say that either."

"Nepotism!" Stoker taunted. "Same old story — not what you know, but who." Tower Clock tolled ten.

"Your wife's assignation is scheduled for eleven," I reminded him, "but she may be there already. You know how it is when a woman's in love. For that matter, Tower Clock may be wrong."

With a loud oath he wrenched open the throttle; our acceleration pressed me into the seat. Moreover he sounded the siren, and the crowd on Tower Hall Plaza looked around in grave alarm as we raced up. Above the great clockfaces the Belfry was floodlit by mobile searchlight-units of the NTCROTC and the various Telerama departments. Agitated pigeons flew in and out. I saw Stoker's face grow grim.

"Go around to the back," I said. "I'm going up through the Library."

"The flunk you are!" he exploded, and jammed on the brakes. "I'm not going anywhere!"

I considered a moment, shrugged, and climbed out of the sidecar.

"Neither are you!" he insisted. But I obviously was.

Just then the crowd sighed; looking up with them I saw a white-tunicked, black-cloaked figure waving from the Belfry. Beside him, all in white, was a smaller, whom partially he caped.

"Did you see it, Jo Anne?" one co-ed demanded of another. "He walked right up the wall, with her on His shoulder!"

"Nonsense," a young man sneered. "He was up there all along. I saw the whole thing."

"So did I ," said the girl on his arm indignantly. "And you're both wrong: He flew down, from higher up." And this opinion she defended stoutly against the most cynical objections: maybe it was a publicity stunt, or a Telerama trick; she neither knew or cared; but that Bray had by one means or another flown into the Belfry with his girlfriend she was as absolutely certain as was her beau that he'd done nothing of the sort and the first girl that he'd scaled the tower barehanded and — footed. Strongly I gimped through, sticking and butting my way in some circumstances, politely begging leave to pass in others. Once, recognizing a knot of my erstwhile lynchers, I slipped into my Bray-mask till I was by them; in another instance I declared I was on official Chancellory business; in yet another, that I was George Giles, Goat-Boy and true Grand Tutor, en route to rescue my distressed Ladyship.

"From what?" Stoker demanded, puttering behind me on the motorcycle. "Who said she wants rescuing?"

A few male students chuckled. Others whispered to their female companions. I gimped on, around to the Library entrance, followed by a small but growing throng. The figures in the Belfry disappeared.

"Flunk it all, listen here!" Stoker yelled, throttling up beside me. "Do you think she'd be up there if I hadn't ordered her to go? I arranged it!"

I smiled.

"Call me a cuckold!" Stoker challenged. "You can bet I have my reasons!" His tone grew more fretful as we came near the Library door. "But that doesn't give you permission, Goat-Boy! You're staying right here!"