we stuck a peg or something in his feet
and dumped him in the woods, for crows to eat.
"That's a terrible thing to do!" I cried aloud. "How could anybody do a thing like that?" Until people shushed and chuckled all around me, I was as indignant as I'd been at Troll's misconduct years before. Apparently, however, Agenora herself had not approved of this cruel expedient, for she wiped the hollow eyes of her mask with the hem of her robe and said:
AGENORA: The thought of it still makes me want to throw up.
Labdakides was sure the kid would grow up
and do him in; for my part, I was willing
to take a chance on that instead of killing
our only son. My husband had his way,
but things weren't right between us from that day
until the day I heard that he'd died.
Now listen, and you'll see the proph-prof lied:
Our poor boy never had a chance to clobber
Labdakides; it was some highway robber —
a gang, I mean — - that knocked him off near Isthmus
while he was out weekending with his mistress.
That intersection called the Three-lined Fork
is where they ambushed him and pulled his cork,
and slit his little girlfriend's throat from ear to ear.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: His girlfriend?
AGENORA: What, are you still here?
Yes, I mean that brazen little slut,
his secretary. Was I glad they cut
her up!
TALIPED: Excuse me, dear, but were there two
or four roads at that intersection you
just mentioned?
AGENORA: Are you deaf or something, baby?
Three-Tined Fork is what I said.
TALIPED: [Aside]
Then maybe
old Gynander's not entirely blindl
Good grief!
AGENORA: What is it, doll? Whafs on your mind?
TALIPED: Tell me again: it was a robber gang?
AGENORA: That's what the valet said who came and flung
himself before me. Four or five, he swore,
attacked my husband and that little whore.
They were so busy murdering and raping,
they didn't notice he was escaping.
He said it was a gang, and begged a transfer
to the sheep-barns.
TALIPED: I must hear that answer
from the man himself. I wish you'd ask your
maid to fetch him.
AGENORA: / put him out to pasture
years ago; but he can always leave.
TALIPED: Send for him, then. My dear, you won't believe
what I'm about to tell you…
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: [Aside]
Here we go:
another monster-story.
TALIPED: Sure, I know
I look as perfect as you think I am:
handsome, brave, and smart —
AGENORA: Sexy, lamb,
not smart.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: [Aside]
Not modest, either.
TALIPED: I'm so swell,
you probably won't believe me when I tell
you that I once did something bad…
AGENORA: I'll try.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Me too.
TALIPED: Are you still here?
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Where else?
TALIPED: Then l
will tell you both of the one indiscretion
in an otherwise faultless life. This whole confession
is off the record, naturally.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Oh, sure.
TALIPED: I know you've often asked yourselves before:
"Where did our clever, handsome dean come from?"
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I stay awake nights wondering that.
TALIPED: "How come
he came here?" you have doubtless asked each other.
"Who was his daddy, and who was his mother?"
Well, it's this way: Once upon a time — -
AGENORA: Spare us the details, hon.
TALIPED: All right, I'm
from Isthmus College, where the dean's my dad.
I was his fair-haired boy — - you see I had
it made there. I would be their dean today,
except I heard a drunk old poet say
at someone's cocktail party that I wasn't
my dad's son at all! Now, such talk doesn't
bother me, as a rule; bad-tempered fellows
call you a bastard just because they're jealous.
This poet, though, had no ax to grind,
and so I called our proph-prof in to find
out what he'd say about it. (Dad refused
even to discuss it; I was used
to silence from him and from Mom — - his wife — -
whenever I brought up the Facts of Life.
I had to learn the truth myself.)
AGENORA: I see.
[TO COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN]
That's why he was so green when he met me.
I taught him what a young man needs to know.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: You taught us all, madam, even though