I was by this time entirely involved with Taliped’s resolve to learn his identity. I’d finished my popcorn, and began to eat the tasty box as the committee sang a brief and sprightly song of conjecture about Dean
Taliped’s parentage, coming curiously to a full stop at each line’s end, whether the word was complete or not.
Whoopee! Hooray for truth! The un
[
STROPHE
1
examined life is not
worth living! Truth will make you free!
And other campus mot
toes of that sort. What is a coll
[
ANTISTROPHE
1
ege for if not to seek
the truth? Hooray for truth! Whoopee!
I’ll bet this time next week
end, when the moon’s full, we’ll be dan
[
STROPHE
2
cing up in Dean’s Ravine
,
where Taliped was transferred out
of Cadmus to the Dean
ery of Isthmus. Gosh! We won
[
ANTISTROPHE
2
der who his mom can be!
No doubt she was a trustee’s wife
or some such high-class fe
male whom the passèd Founder Him
[
STROPHE
3
self knocked up in the grass
.
Dean Taliped’s the Founder’s son:
a most uncommon bas
tard!
[
ANTISTROPHE
3
“Hey, I never thought of that!” I whispered to Max. “Do you suppose—”
He met my eyes gravely. “No, my boy.”
Dr. Sear identified the approaching scene as the next-to-last, his favorite and the climax of the tragedy. It opened with Dean Taliped, the Committee Chairman, and the Handsome Mailman standing together as before, while from the wings a small old man was dragged in between two burly chaps.
| TALIPED: | The Campus Cops are on the job, I see. We’ll put the screws to this old boy till we squeeze out his answers or his worthless life . |
| | [ TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ] But first: is he the valet that my wife was speaking of? I don’t have time to torture ancient shepherds simply for the sport . |
| COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: | You’re right; that would be wasteful. He’s the man, okay: Labdakides’s flunkey . |
| TALIPED: | [ TO MAILMAN ] |
| | Can you say for sure that he’s your former pal? |
| MAILMAN: | Former is right. That’s him . |
| COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: | That’s he . |
| TALIPED: | Now cut that out! [ TO SHEPHERD ] Look here, old man , |
| | you’d better speak the truth, the entire truth , et cetera. |
| SHEPHERD: | I wish I was dead . |
| TALIPED: | You may be, soon. Now answer this: were you Labdakides’s man, sir? |
| SHEPHERD: | Yep. I shepped his sheep for quite a spell . |
| TALIPED: | Where’d you mainly shep ’em, pops? |
| SHEPHERD: | Oh well, let’s see: I shepped ’em here and shepped ’em there … |
| TALIPED: | In Dean’s Ravine? |
| SHEPHERD: | I shepped ’em everywhere. Stinking hungry sheep—they’re always eating . |
| TALIPED: | In Dean’s Ravine, do you remember meeting this chap here? This Handsome Mailman type? |
| SHEPHERD: | Nope . |
| MAILMAN: | Come on! It’s me you used to gripe about your boss to, every time the two of us would split a jug of Mountain Dew . |
| SHEPHERD: | Okay, so we’re old pals. Congratulations. So what? |
| MAILMAN: | Remember our negotiations about a kid one day? You guaranteed it was in perfect shape and wouldn’t need repairs before I sold it, flunk your eyes! |
| SHEPHERD: | So sue me. I don’t take back merchandise after thirty years . |
| MAILMAN: | That’s not the point. That kid was Taliped, who runs this joint . |
| SHEPHERD: | What are you — some kind of nut? |
| TALIPED: | I warn you, Shep: this is the Deanery, not the barn. There’s more than one way to squeeze out facts from shankers like yourself. We break their backs and screw their thumbs and stretch ’em on the wheel and do things to their privates till they squeal. It’s lots of fun, and gets results, too. Break one finger for him, boys . |
| SHEPHERD: | For Founder’s sake, I’m old and— ouch ! That smarts! Okay, okay, I’ll talk! Ask me something! |
| TALIPED: | Did he pay you for a child once, this man here? And did you take the cash and hand him one male kid? |
| SHEPHERD: | Yep. I made a killing. Not the kind I was sent out to make, though . |
| TALIPED: | Never mind. Where’d you get that kid from, anyhow? |
| SHEPHERD: | Must I tell you? |
| TALIPED: | [ TO GUARDS ] |
| | Break his finger . |
| SHEPHERD: | Owl Two pinkies in two minutes: the heck with that! The Deanery here is where I got the brat . |
| TALIPED: | The cleaning-lady’s kid? Who was the father? |
| SHEPHERD: | I can’t say … |
| TALIPED: | [ TO GUARDS ] |
| | Break his finger . |
| SHEPHERD: | No! Don’t bother! They said the bastard was Labdakides’s . |
| TALIPED: | The Dean’s himself’s! |
| SHEPHERD: | I hope that answer pleases you. It was his kid . |
| TALIPED: | By Agenora? |
| SHEPHERD: | I didn’t ask . |
| TALIPED: | She gave it to you? |
| SHEPHERD: | For a price I said I’d feed him to the squirrels . |
“Squirrels don’t eat meat,” Peter Greene remarked.
| TALIPED: | Unnatural mother! |
“Indeed she was!” I said, shocked to tears.
| SHEPHERD: | Well, girls will be girls. She wasn’t too enthusiastic, sir . |
| TALIPED: | Then why’d she do it? |
| SHEPHERD: | Better go ask her. She gave me some malarkey how she was sure the kid would kill his dad—some such manure . |
| TALIPED: | Ai yi! |
| COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: | Me too . |
| TALIPED: | Your answers scare me stiff! |
| MAILMAN: | They don’t much bother me . |
| TALIPED: | [ TO SHEPHERD ] |
| | But, flunk you, if she gave those orders, then you disobeyed! |
| COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: | So fire him . [ TO MAILMAN ] Oy, these deans! |
| SHEPHERD: | I was afraid they’d pin the rap on me if things got hot, so I decided, Why not make a pot and also save my neck? This moron swore he’d carry you a long way off before he retailed you . |
| MAILMAN: | I did, you crook! |
| SHEPHERD: | [ TO TALIPED ] |
| | But you came back and made the prophecy come true. So help me Founder, Dean! I’d rather lose eight more fingers than be in your shoes! |
| COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: | [ TO SHEPHERD ] We call them buskins. |
| SHEPHERD: | Oh . |
| COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: | Well, Taliped? |
| TALIPED: | The truth! The truth at last! In my own head I figured out the Answer to this messi |
| COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: | You had a little bit of help, I guess … |
| TALIPED: | The blinding light! At last I see the light! And what it shows me is: Gynander’s right! I’m flunked on my ID-card, flunked in bed, and flunked at Three-Tined Fork—I, Taliped, the smartest dean that ever deaned, will never see the light again! I’m flunked forever! |
With this final cry he rushed into the Deanery, and while my spine thrilled with the horror of his Answers, the committee reconvened to sing its final plaintive report, the members holding hands and swaying gently from side to side:
Here today and gone tomorrow
. [
STROPHE
1
What the dickens. What the heck
.
Men are whiffenpoofs that pass and get forgot
.
Our committee will adjourn now
,
But before we say bye-bye
Let us recapitulate this tragic plot:
In the
protasis,
or
prologue, [
ANTISTROPHE
1
The
protagonist
exposed
To the
deuteragonist
and
choragos
Hamartia caused
by
hubris,
While the background was disclosed;
Then the
chorus
danced and sang the
párodos.
After that the
anabasic [
STROPHE
2
Epeisodions
commenced
,
With the
dithyrambic stasima
between;
And
ironic stichomyths
led
To the
anagnorisis:
A
peripetal
misfortune for the Dean
.
Now the
climax
is upon us
. [
ANTISTROPHE
2
In the
éxodos
to come
,
The
catharsis
will catharse us till we’re spent;
Till
catastrophe
has pooped us
And the
epilogue
is done;
In the meantime here’s the
kommos,
or lament:
Now their voices rose most sweetly in the touchingest words and music I’d ever heard—which, however, did not constitute a true
kommos
, according to Dr. Sear.
Taliped had a mind like an iron trap
. [
STROPHE
3
Boo hoo hoo
.
Caught the monster, caught the deanship, caught the
Dean’s wife in his lap
.
Boo hoo hoo
.
Gentleman, scholar, and keen dean!
But
[
ANTISTROPHE
3
Caught himself in his trap, like a nut
.
Bet he wishes he’d kept it shut
.
Boo hoo hoo
.
Why did you murder your daddy, my friend?
Why did you roger your mommy? And
Why must we sing this refrain again?
Boo hoo hoo
.
At this point, while my eyes swam still, the hush in which the committee’s last notes died was broken by a static rustle and a terse voice from loudspeakers around the margin of the Amphitheater.
“Ladies and gentlemen: we interrupt this catharsis to bring you two special news bulletins …”
There was a general stir; Dr. Sear muttered something impatient about the adverse psychological effects of
catharsis interruptus
, but after a moment’s pause the amplified announcement continued:
“The body of Herman Hermann, former dean of the Bonifacist extermination campuses, has been found in the New Tammany College Forests near Founder’s Hill. Hermann, sought since the end of Campus Riot Two for crimes against studentdom, is reported to have been shot. His body was discovered this afternoon by a detachment of Powerhouse guards. Main Detention has begun an investigation of the case at Chancellor Rexford’s request …”
The announcement was received with an outburst of cheering from everyone in the Amphitheater except Dr. Sear, who shrugged his shoulders, Max, who shuddered, and myself, too surprised by the novelty of loudspeakers to assimilate the news at once. Even Croaker woke up, grunted, and clapped his hands with the others. I heard people nearby remark that the beast had had it coming; that shooting was too good for the man who had administered the Bonifacist extermination campuses.