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Protestors pin a complaint to Martin’s door. It alleges that he is an excessively sharp goat.

“You yell one wild self-accusation,” Martin mutters.

But he can’t keep a little smile from his face.

To think it! Him! Martin! A goat!

He crumbles the protest note. He tosses it in the garbage. Unfortunately Jane frequently reads and/or eats things found in the garbage. A dispute arises.

“I am no longer even sure what a goat and what isn’t is,” Jane says.

“They’re like,” Martin says, and he gestures vaguely. “They’re like goat impersonators, only less so.”

“Bah!” says Jane, dismissively.

“You use a stone,” Martin says. “Right?”

He holds a stone to his forehead. He impersonates a duck.

(It’s a stone of impersonating farmyard animals.)

“And that’s a goat,” Jane says.

“That’s a duck!” Martin says, reverting. “But a comparatively goat-like one.”

“I am going to go empty the contents of a troll’s stomach,” says Jane. “Unless that’s not even a real troll.”

“They’re a real troll!”

“I bet this isn’t even Ipswich,” says Jane, sulkily, and storms out.

After a while Martin puts the stone on his forehead again. He impersonates an excessively sharp goat. He wanders around the apartment, bleating and cutting things.

It isn’t addictive. Not really.

He can stop it any time that he’d like!

<< Chapter 10: Further Discussion of Goats

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