John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

TALIPED: Why not?

BROTHER-IN-LAW: You want it here?

Right now?

TALIPED: There's no choice. Despite my fear

of more bad news, I've got my reputation

to maintain — - the one that Public Information

invented for me (may they all get cancers):

"The Dean who'll go to any length for Answers."

Flunk the day they dreamed that up! But now

I'm stuck with it, I guess. So, tell me how

things are, and what the Proph-prof says to do

about it.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: Man, have I got news for you.

TALIPED: You'd better have, considering your expenses.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: I won't repeat the Proph's own words; their sense is

that one man is responsible for all

our miseries and travail.

TALIPED:[Aside]

That's Founder's Hall,

all right: I know their rhetoric.

[to BROTHER-IN-LAW]

Go on, sir.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: One man's doing more harm than the monster

ever did to us. The Proph-prof feared

we're done for if that man's not cashiered.

TALIPED: It's like those propheteers to pin the blame

on some bloke they don't care for! What's his name,

this poor schlemiel that's poisoning the place?

I'll sack him if I must.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: His name and face

the Proph-prof couldn't help us with.

TALIPED: Some prophet!

I wish the bloody faker would come off it

and admit he's in the dark as much as we are.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: Now that's no way to talk about the Seer,

Taliped. He couldn't name the dirty

dog right out, and yet he made it pretty

clear whom we're to look for and expel

from Cadmus College.

TALIPED: Then come on and tell

me who I've got to fire, man! Whom, / mean.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: The killer of Labdakides, our dean

before you took his place nine years ago.

TALIPED: That was my predecessor's name. Although

he published not a word before he perished,

Agenora speaks of him — - his cherished

wife, that I took later for my bride.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: No need to tell me that.

TALIPED: But how he died

I never took the trouble to find out.

BROTHER-IN-LAW:/ noticed.

TALIPED: Excellent. But if the lout

who did the old man in is still around

and causing all this trouble, he'll be found,

by golly, and I'll show the wretch no pity.

[TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN]

/ here appoint you head of a committee

to find the killer of Labdakides.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Thanks a lot.

TALIPED: The rest of you will please

continue to function as committee-members.

[TO BROTHER-IN-LAW]

So how'd he die, and when?

BROTHER-IN-LAW: Nine Septembers

ago, I think, or ten — - no, it was nine —

Labdakides — - a relative of mine,

I might add — -

TALIPED: Everybody is, it seems.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:[Aside]

Not everyone: just deans and wives of deans.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: In any case, the Dean had been invited

to head up a symposium; this delighted

him: he loved to speak in distant places,

eat and drink for free, and see new faces;

no matter what the subject or how rough

the journey, if the fee was high enough,

he'd go.

TALIPED: There's nothing strange in that; it is

among a dean's responsibilities.

He set out by himself, then? Please speak faster.

BROTHER-IN-LAW: Alone he wasn't. Besides the wagonmaster

he took his secretary — - quite a peach,

she was — - his valet, P. R. man, and speech-

writer. Five men and the girl, and all

but one was killed.

TALIPED: I guess it was the doll

who got away?

BROTHER-IN-LAW: I wish she had, old pal; it

should have been the girl and not the valet

who escaped. The way that kid could walk!

TALIPED: All right, all right; forget her. Did you talk

to this one chap, this valet who got away?

BROTHER-IN-LAW: I did. But all the yellow wretch could say

for himself was that he wished he'd never been

promoted from his old job by the Dean —

he'd used to be a shepherd, and he said

he wished he'd never valeted instead.

I guess he had no stomach for such snobbery…

TALIPED: Flunk his stomach! Was it highway robbery,

a crime of passion, or assassination?

Why was no subsequent investigation

held? This valet himself might be the crook!

BROTHER-IN-LAW: I doubt it: we made it plain we'd throw the book

at him for lying, if we caught him at it.

He swore to us he knew no more than that it

was a gang of toughs who did the deed.

TALIPED: A gang of toughs? What for?

BROTHER-IN-LAW: I wish that we'd

had time to ask that question. But before

we could, the shepherd bolted through the door

and fled to the remotest Cadmus barn.

We would have fetched him back, but then the darn

monster-business comes along and ties

us hand and foot, investigationwise.

We put all other matters on the shelf

till you came by. You know the rest yourself.

TALIPED: So here we are, hung up again with riddles!

The Proph-prof prophesies, the committee fiddles,

everybody gripes, and I'm supposed

to solve a murder-case that you-all closed

nine years ago. That's great! And not a shred

of evidence! The shepherd's no doubt dead

by now, or else he will have clean forgotten

what little he saw.

[Aside] Founder flunk this rotten

image they've laid on me: Master Sleuth:

The Dean Who'll Dare Anything for Truth!

[TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN AND BROTHER-IN-LAW]

Okay, okay, I'll see what I can do

to get the College off the hook and you

birds off my doorstep. It's not a bit of fun

to know that on the campus there's someone

who likes to kill administrators

(not to mention pretty secretaries).

What we need's a public show of deanly prudence.

Also firmness. Summon all the students

and professors here at once. By heck,

I'll find out who's to blame or break my neckl

We all applauded this resolution — all except Croaker, who I saw was fast asleep, and Max, who found the translation unsatisfactory. Dr. Sear especially commended Taliped's statement, declaring however that in his mind its appeal came from the fact that it was precisely this high-minded vow that would be the Dean's undoing, according to the laws of tragedy. Taliped and his brother-in-law left the stage now, by way of the Deanery door, and the committee of department-heads and vice-administrators dispersed to right and left, but reassembled again a moment later, facing us in a line, just as I was about to inquire further into the laws of tragedy, which I was unfamiliar with.