How It All Goes Down
- Mr. Levy and Mrs. Levy bicker. In case you haven't noticed, A Confederacy of Dunces loves people bickering—the more they bicker, the happier the book is. It is a bicker book.
- They are bickering about Miss Trixie. Mr. Levy thinks Mrs. Levy should leave her alone, but Mrs. Levy thinks Mr. Levy is selfish and stupid. So they disagree.
- Miss Trixie has gotten new false teeth, and she snaps them and tells Mr. and Mrs. Levy to shut up, over and over again.
- Mr. Levy says he's trying to sell Levy Pants, which he hates, but no luck; Mrs. Levy taunts him and fusses over Miss Trixie.
- We go over to Jones talking to Mr. Watson. Mr. Watson still encourages sabotage, and Jones says the best sabotage would be to get Ignatius back in the Night of Joy.
- And then to Ignatius himself, who is beset by his mother's suspicion that he is a Communist and by Myrna's scorn, and also by the fact that he can't sell any hot dogs in the Quarter.
- He pushes his cart to a showing by a ladies' art guild because he figures it will be awful and he can sneer at it.
- His worst fears are happily realized, and he loudly insults the paintings, causing the ladies distress. They even throw a rock at him.
- He sits down to tend his physical wounds and wounded dignity, and is accosted by Dorian Greene, the man who bought Mrs. Reilly's hat at the beginning of the novel.
- They bicker (surprise), and Ignatius is hit in the face with a shoe and whines a lot.
- Ignatius damages Dorian's sweater and it's Dorian's turn to whine a lot.
- They see one of Dorian's friends, Timmy, in a sailor suit being stalked by Officer Mancuso in a beret and goatee.
- Dorian reveals that everyone in the Quarter knows who Mancuso is, and they love him because he is ridiculous.
- Ignatius suggests that homosexuals should infiltrate all the militaries of the world—then there would be no war because all the men in all the armies would just want to flirt and have sex with each other.
- And yes, if you are wondering, this scheme is built on unpleasant stereotypes, and sounds odd now that gay people serving in the military is a commonplace and accepted occurrence. But Dorian, anyway, seems to take it mostly as a joke.
- Ignatius, though, seems to think it's actually a workable plot and a way to shock and humiliate Myrna Minkoff.
- Ignatius tells Dorian to form a political party.
- Dorian is bored, but then he realizes it could be an excuse for a party, perhaps with costumes.
- We end with George, who is still trying to figure out how to deal with Lana's packages.
- He spies Officer Mancuso wandering around the Quarter and thinks the police are after him; suddenly he realizes that the best thing to do is store the packages in Ignatius's cart.