My knights have devastated your ranks. Your Queen has fallen to a pawn (the shame!) and my rooks have yet to enter the fray. While you consider your next move, I will tell you a story. You are my only friend now; the prison guards refuse to listen to me. Whenever I try to talk to them, they simply open their hideous mouths and gibber. I can almost believe it when you tell me they are not men at all, but intelligent apes who have recently paid a visit to the barber. My name, of course, is Titian Grundy. Once, I was the Prefect of Police. I had money, power, the love of auburn-haired women. I knew the President personally. My influence over him was profound. I taught him how to balance on a trapeze and how to juggle ugli-fruit. In return, he paid close attention to my suggestions concerning subsidies to elk farmers. Our relationship was one of mutual help and respect. We were a symbiosis. Possibly even a gestalt. He lived far away from the City, in a field of blue grass by the banks of a tawny river; in a golden tower full of music machines.
