Sir Humphrey reaches forward — with the gravity of a man who has deliberated for two seconds and regrets nothing — and lifts the judge's hat from the goat's head. It is slightly damp. He places it upon his helmet, where it enters a complicated negotiation with the visor. "Reginald." "Recording," says Reginald, already writing. "Let the record show that the office of Tournament Judge — vacated by circumstances beyond anyone's control — has been duly assumed." From somewhere behind them, without looking up, Goodwife Thripp says: "Tournament's been over four hours." "The office," says Sir Humphrey, "has not." The goat, its duties discharged, walks to the gate with extraordinary calm, pauses to eat a piece of ceremonial bunting, and departs. Reginald closes his satchel. He looks at what he has written. He does not cross anything out. The matter of the Goat is, by the most charitable interpretation available, resolved.