no passèd Founder; that however keen
your intellect, after all you're just a dean —
and young besides, in years if not in mind.
TALIPED: [Aside]
And thin-skinned, too, this windy fool will find;
I'll break his contract and revoke his pension,
I swear itl
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Mister Dean, sir — - your attention?
What we mean, sir, is that inasmuch
as you contrived to save us from the clutch
of that she-monster at our entrance-gate —
who quizzed us with her riddle and then ate
us when we flunked — - since you alone, I say,
by some device were able, on that day
nine years ago, to get her off our back,
you must have had some influence that we lack
with the powers-that-be. I don't think it was knowledge
(I know more learned men in Cadmus College)
or wisdom, either; simply good connections.
Therefore, in the subsequent elections
you won the Cadmus deanship and your wife,
the old Dean's widow…
TALIPED: Don't review my life;
I know the story twice as well as you.
"I didn't," Greene whispered into my ear. "I'm glad the old man let us in on it."
"Shh," somebody hissed behind us.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: [Aside]
He tells it twice as well and often, too.
[TO TALIPED]
We hope, sir, you'll be able to repeat
that stunt; to set the College on its feet
by some great deanly deed, before we're dead.
That's what we came to tell you, Taliped.
TALIPED: [Aside]
Tell is right — the threat's thinly veiled!
Their point's quite clear: that, deanwise, I've failed,
and should resign my post.
[TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN]
Look here, by Neddy!
You tell me nothing I don't know already.
" ' By Neddy!' " Sear exclaimed. "That is a bit far!"
TALIPED: In fact, while you've been sitting on your thumbs
(and on my steps), I've done things. Look: here comes
my brother-in-law, by sheer coincidence,
this minute, whom last week I had the sense
and foresight to dispatch, as assistant dean,
with all expenses paid, to survey the scene
first-hand, and then to pay a formal call
on the Professor of Prophecy in Founder's Hall
and ask his advice, just to forestall the shout
that rascal raises when I leave him out.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: [Aside, TO COMMITTEE]
Of all the men around, look which he picks
as his assistant! Campus politics
makes strange bed-partners. Now, of course, wemust
pretend to be impressed by and to trust
this arrant ninny's judgment — - not that he
has either sense or perspicacity.
Connections, though, he does have, which we worship:
[to BROTHER-IN-LAW]
Top o' the morning to Your Brother-in-lawship!
"Is that a proper rhyme?" I inquired at once of Dr. Sear. He promised to go into the subject with me later, but bid me heed now the important exposition being revealed down on the stage, where Taliped had greeted his brother-in-law's timely arrival and asked him what the Professor of Prophecy had had to say.
BROTHER-IN-LAW: You want it straight?
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