The end of the Clipperton legend (pp. 431–432)
little Mario Incandenza sways down the steep path to the portcullis in the warm rain and interfaces with Clipperton through the bars and has the attendant hold the intercom-button down for him and personally requests that Clipperton be admitted under a special nonplay codicil to the regulations
Context
Mario is the hinge of the whole tragedy: the friend Clipperton mutters to at tournaments, the one who sways down to the gate in the rain and argues him past the portcullis, the one whose glowing talk of Incandenza Sr. presumably sent Clipperton looking for that counsel in the first place. And then Himself conscripts the son's camera into it — requires Clipperton to consent to Mario's borrowed head-clamped Bolex recording the entire crisis, ostensibly to protect E.T.A. from O.N.A.N.T.A.'s rules. The father turns the son into mediator and witness in the same gesture: Mario brokers the meeting and is made to film it, the boy who arranges the encounter also made its official eye.