p nurses a bandaged nose, sees the inside of a vet's garage
(replete with a scourge of animals more reminiscent of a concentration
camp than an infirmary) is duly horrified, then droops off to a needle.
While recovering, a kitten perches on his upper abdomen and goes to
sleep. A thoughtful child covers Rip with an old rug. Rip's tongue
nearly flattens the mat as it lolls from his mouth. The edge of his jaw
is ringed with a black, tarry substance that grows more viscous the
longer Rip is under sedation. Rip's education proceeds apace.

By a queer turn of events, big Rip was to become associated with a
number of incontestable oddities, each sufficient to besmirch his name.
Firstly, Rip's very name popped up with annoying frequency. How, the
family queried, had the name "Rip," been chosen anyway? Of this, no one
seemed certain. The father remembered some vacation talk when
references were being made to a rip roaring time and that, perhaps, a
pup would soon be in the offing. Apart from this, Rip's name and how
they had deigned to associate that foppish hound with "Rip," remained a
mystery. The children in their homework, moreover, were increasingly
being made aware of the times "Rip," seemed to get in the semantics of
the language, English orthography and even the warp and woof of history
itself. Certainly, Rip or someone like him, had been outstanding.

Rip Van Winkle's first disclosure caused one such stir. One child
particularly pressed for explanations. Had this other Rip been
doggishly inclined? Did Rumpelstiltskin have a brother named Rip? No,
repeated the mother unless the child's inference was to Rip's great
doggish capacity for sleep or Rumpelstiltskin's spinning or spilling of
hair or food. A second child, not meaning to be overly precocious,
similarly unearthed a red herring. Rip Taylor, the comedian, had Rip's
name. Was he, too, er . . . like Rip? The mother smiled. Only in his
buffoonery, but she, again, was unsure why either Rip had been so named.

Some days later, the children heard one of the older boys in public
school boasting of being "ripped," the weekend before. The younger
child, wary of being ridiculed but curious as to this new utterance of
the family pet's name, pressed for some explanation. Utter derision.
The child shame-facedly brought the problem home. The mother, not
trained in the lore of schoolyard vernacular, thought the boy in
question had escaped a whipping for tearing something and was b