Mario's birth and body (pp. 317–318)
it was Hal, not she, who, when the veiled legate from the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed showed up at the E.T.A. driveway’s portcullis to discuss with Mario issues of blind inclusion v. visual estrangement, of the openness of concealment the veil might afford him, it was Hal, even as Mario laughed and half-bowed, it was Hal, brandishing his Dunlop stick, who told the guy to go peddle his linen someplace else.
Context
The theme's two systems collide at the E.T.A. gate: U.H.I.D. comes recruiting with its full doctrine ("blind inclusion v. visual estrangement... the openness of concealment"), Mario answers with his standing reply to pity — the laugh and half-bow — and Hal refuses the veil on his brother's behalf, with a tennis racquet, in the language of a salesman being run off. (Carlisle's sharper irony, recorded: chasing off the legate may have cost Mario his one chance to re-meet Joelle through the Union.)