he solved the monstrous Riddle, cracked the Quiz,
and found out whom he'd humped and who he is.
Look where his Answers got him, and rejoice
that you don't know who you are, girls and boysl
Don't be too optimistic, vain, or proud;
every silver lining has a cloud.
Let no man be called passèd from this day,
until he painlessly has passed away.
He bowed; then as he turned to his committee our applause became a rush of dismay, for a great white figure fluttered out of the black sky onto the stage. Whether on wires or by some other means, one could not tell; two large somethings waved from his shoulders as he descended, and disappeared as if tucked in when he lit in the orchestra. Though like the others he was gowned in white, his costume had a different cut: long-skirted in the style of a ceremonial vestment, but tight-cuffed, high-necked, and buttonless on the order of a doctor's tunic. The chorus of committee-members seemed as surprised as we by his appearance; they gave way, some in plain alarm, and the actors who had played the roles of Taliped and Agenora thrust their heads out from the Deanery to see what was causing the commotion.
"There's no machina in the script!" Dr. Sear exclaimed.
"Failed!" the white figure declared, in an oddly clicking way. Holding a mask to his face like one of the principles in the play, he pointed accusingly at Taliped. "Taliped Decanus and his sort are flunked forever! Tragedy's out; mystery's in!" He removed the mask and tossed it behind him, revealing a round, black-mustachioed countenance.
"For pity's sake," Dr. Sear exclaimed. "It's Harold Bray."
"I'm your Grand Tutor!" the man on the stage said loudly. At once there was an uproar in the audience, partly mirthful, over which he shouted, "I'll show all of you who believe me the way to Commencement Gate! I'm the way myself, believe me!"
"He is not!" I protested to my companions. "I am!"
"His name's Harold Bray," Dr. Sear explained, evidently amused and impressed. "Minor poet, half dozen other things. Used to do some kind of therapy-work in the Clinic, too. What do you suppose he's up to?"
Bray went on: "I'm the Tutor WESCAC announced. If anyone doubts it, I invite him to talk things over personally with me in my office. I've come to pass you flunkers all, and to prove I'm the one who can do it, I'll walk into WESCAC's Belly and come out unEATen. See if I don't! See for yourselves!"
"Remarkable chap, actually," Dr. Sear beamed — every bit as interested in Harold Bray as he had been in me. "Came to New Tammany a few years ago, goodness knows where from. Fancy him the Grand Tutor!"
"He can't go into WESCAC's Belly," I insisted. "I'm the only one who can do that!" I looked back for Max.
Now Bray stepped forth from the orchestra into the aisle of the Amphitheater, raising his arms to left and to right.
"Come on!" he clicked. "All you folks who need Commencing, come on to me!"
There was near-pandemonium in the audience, everyone shouting to his neighbor and crowding this way and that. Those who wished only to leave the theater pressed against those — a growing number — who thronged already down towards the man in white: some on their knees, some carrying children in their arms, who it seemed to me were up past their bedtimes. Greene was on his feet next to the aisle up which the pretender came; Dr. Sear leaned back and surveyed the spectacle with a little smile, lacing his fingers about one knee.
"Why is Max taking so long?" I asked him. He shrugged his eyebrows and marveled skeptically at Bray's announced intention of entering WESCAC's Belly.
"I'm going up and try to find Max," I announced. "Croaker will be all right with my stick to chew on."
But the aisle as Bray drew nearer was choked with the curious and troubled, who far outnumbered the mockers. "Can you cure cancer of the cervix?" I heard someone shout.
"I know the way!" Bray called back. His face was ruddy; his eyes were dark and glintish.
"How'd you ever fly down like that?" asked another.
"I have the Answers!" Bray replied.
I forced my way into the aisle behind Peter Greene, who I thought had heard my intention and was clearing a path for me. But he turned — Bray was no more than ten steps below us now — and called down to him between cupped hands:
"S'pose a fellow's lost one eyeball? Ain't nothing you can do 'bout that! Is there?"
"Come along and see!" the man called back.
Max had to be found at once. I left Peter Greene to his delusions and struggled through the crowd to the exit. The first uniformed attendant I met — a slack-mouthed pocky chap my age — paid no attention to my question; his eyes were fixed on the self-styled Grand Tutor, and his expression was transfigured. I inquired of several people near the box-office (to which more crowds were swarming, the news apparently having spread) whether they'd seen a small white-bearded old man in a mohair wrapper, but got nothing for my troubles except frowns and mocking replies — until a stout campus policeman, one of a number endeavoring to keep the crush from getting out of hand, shouted over his shoulder: "Spielman? You his lawyer or something?"
I declared that Dr. Spielman was my advisor.
"Don't take his advice!" the policeman laughed. "He's yonder in the pokey, under arrest!"
He could not be bothered with explanation. Stunned, I made my way across the street to an office labeled CAMPUS PATROL — GREAT MALL SUB-STATION, and learned from a uniformed reception-clerk with yellow hair and a large red face that Max was in Main Detention, charged with the shooting of Herman Hermann.
"That isn't so! Max doesn't believe in hurting people! It's some trick of Maurice Stoker's!"
Unimpressed by my opinions, the clerk informed me that I might be permitted to speak to the prisoner after his arraignment, but not before. Then he looked at my wrapper suspiciously.
"You don't happen to go by the name of Goat-Boy? George Goat-Boy?"
I confessed that I was that same person, and though I couldn't satisfy his request for an ID-card to prove it, he finally either accepted my word or decided he didn't care.
"Takes all kinds to make a campus," he grunted. "Prisoner left a message for one George Goat-Boy." He declared as if reading from a paper: "No need for me. Announcement settles everything. Don't hesitate at Scrapegoat Grate." As he spoke, a number of telephones on his desk began ringing, and the roar of the crowd outside increased. He picked up one telephone receiver and leaned to see around me through the window. "Run along now, Mac. We got our hands full, this Grand Tutor business. Yes, sir," he said into the telephone, and cleared the yellow hair from his brow with his other hand.
I couldn't imagine what to think or do. From the steps of the stationhouse, heart draining, I looked out over the host that now, all mirth gone, bore white-gowned Bray upon their shoulders, up the boulevard, cheering, chanting.
"Hooray for Bray!"
"Bray's the Way!"
His arms were lifted over them; he turned triumphantly from side to side; even at that distance, when he faced in my direction, I saw the striking glitter in his bush-browed eyes, like a goat's or cat's eye in the dark, most remarkable. And across the translux in the square the message flashed, over and over: Never fear: Commencement's here! All the way with Bray!