Part the third, light relief from the darkness pending, where the tears of the emotional one causes inebriation that could have ended the tale presumptively.

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Mayer ate Oates
And Dawes ate Oates
And little Lambe ate Iveagh.

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Iveagh and Oates were, meanwhile, coasting down the downhill slope of a stellar day. The bull had been approached by a young fellow -- a feline of some kind in a tweed coat with leather patches at the elbows -- who had enquired of him to pose for a number of photographs. He was employed, he proclaimed, as a 'social worker,' and pictures of one such as Oates would 'actively illustrate the desperation faced daily by the common or working man, cast aside by the voracious wheels of industry.' Oates nodded vigourously at the leopard (having recalled the name of the species after a good five minutes of puzzlement, and the good fortune that an illustration on the label of his beer bottle was the cat's spitting image) and agreed to have his portrait captured for posterity ... once, of course, there was some spare coppers throw in to sweeten the deal and encourage 'this scion of a long line of noble minotaurs, degraded temporarily to this current lowly position by the callous disregard of an uncaring world' to remain sober for the duration. Oates was not one for poetic pronouncements and had, in fact, quoted directly from the opening monologue of a serial that had played daily on the wireless of a seamstress who plied her trade in the square frequented by he and his ovine friend.

It seemed that the academic had no interest in drama, as he claimed afterwards not to have known this fact.

Oates impressed the social worker so much that the fellow was reduced to tears, raging against the injustices of the world, or bewailing that such mighty and noble creature like this had been reduced to a miserable life of destitude. The bull expressed his personal opinion of the entire event to a comrade of the bottle later in the afternoon. He had sincerely hoped the leopard would 'shut up and bugger off,' especially as his breakfast of fortified wine was beginning to wear off and he would need some refortification. The angst suffered by the leather-patched one, however, netted him a half-crown for a half-hour's work. Oates was terribly impressed, and roared a repeat invite to the weeping leopard as he stumbled off to his warm office at his university's common room.

The half-crown bought a pair of quart-bottles of gin.

"I swear t' you, Iveagh, me aul' stock," slurred a very drunken Oates as he and the intoxicated ram, arm in arm, left the Moo and Baa en route to their boudoir, "God bless t'men of larn'n'. That's what I say! What say you?" Iveagh's face was split into a wide grin. "As God is my judge," he replied in his rich basso tones, "I can think of no better profession than that which permits you to take bromides of bovines during the daylight hours, and thereafter to cry through the twilight at the memory." His proclamation passed, the ram twisted his ankle on a cobblestone and they both pitched headlong into the canal.

By the time the herbivorous duo had extricated themselves from the stagnant three-foot deep water and clambered ashore, they were drenched through; stinking of river mud; yelling incomprehensible curses at each other. Oates opened the door to their sleeping accommodation and stood there, tight-lipped and quietly fuming, as his companion unleashed another verbal barrage. It is moot at this remove to report what was said, but the tenet of his contention was that Iveagh expected someone as large and densely built as Oates to provide vertical support even if one were to twist one's ankle on a cobble, and certainly would not be expected to fall over like a felled tree -- and especially not to land on his misfortunate friend when they ended up in the stinking water of the lock. Oates was somewhat more stoic, if not downright more laconic, than his ovine companion, and when his wide ears had absorbed a full half hour of solid complaint, and more than the one comment questioning his parentage and the legitimacy of his birth, he grabbed his blanket and trudged to the end of the brick-lined corridor to station himself outside the doorway on the right. Anywhere, he thought, was more favourable than the mattressed rooms at the front where his friend continued to rage and complain. He thrust his shoulder against the wooden door and was surprised when it gave way almost immediately, pitching him into the blackness of the dark storeroom.

Iveagh's bleating continued to echo, despite the crash and the door's collapse. The bull was far too drunk, tired and drenched to care. He was going to sleep here, spiders or no spiders; on the cold floor if needs be, as long as it would spare his thumping head from the complaints of that bedamned wool-bearing sheep. Blearily, he felt all around the room and in the darkness found a large number of soft cubes of a something that would comfortably substitute as a bed. Stripping his wet garments from himself, he lay upon them, pulled his blanket over his shivering frame and fell soundly asleep.

Dawn, it can be surmised, came far too soon for Oates. The little light that feebly penetrated his dark room made his horned head pulse with the sickening aftermath of juniper-scented excess. A medical person of note once described the effects of gin on the waking inebriate as thus:

"The skin is clammy beneath the pelt. The mouth is at once dry and moist, the sputum being of a most glutinous nature that adheres to the surfaces of the maw with the consistency of treacle, but none of the latter's sweet nature. The brain within the skull pounds as though compressed within the cranial cavity and seeking a quick means to expand. The eyes, windows to the soul, are yellowed and flat, offering one an image of desolation and destitude within the soul of the unfortunate imbiber. If the victim of their own excess does not vent the bile from their own stomach, they will experience nausea, disorientation, malaise and discomfort for up to a full twenty-four hours after awakening."

Oates felt, no doubt, every sip of his quart of gin, and when the minotaur awoke -- nauseated, disoriented, full of malaise and discomforted to the very tips of his horns -- he looked blearily around the unfamiliar room and promptly vomited his stomach contents over the concrete floor.


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