The bell—The mirror-like sea—I am to burn eternally.
I was walking upon the dock where the Integral is being built, when the Second Builder came to meet me. His face as usual was round and white—a porcelain plate. When he speaks it seems as though he serves you a plate of something unbearably tasty.
“You chose to be ill, and without the Chief we had an accident, as it were, yesterday.”
“An accident?”
“Yes, sir. We finished the bell and started to let it down, and imagine! the men caught a male without a number. How he got in, I cannot make out. They took him to the Operation Department. Oh, they’ll draw the mystery out of the fellow there; ‘why’ and ‘how,’ etc. …” He smiled delightedly.