“Heh, mathematician! Dreaming?”

I shivered. Black eyes varnished with laughter looked at me⁠—thick negro lips! It was my old friend the poet, R-13 , and with him rosy O- . I turned around angrily (I still believe that if they had not appeared I should have entered the Bureau and have torn the square-root of minus one out of my flesh).

“Not dreaming at all; if you will, ‘standing in adoration,’ ” I retorted quite brusquely.

“Oh, certainly, certainly! You, my friend, should never have become a mathematician; you should have become a poet, a great poet! Yes, come over to our trade, to the poets. Heh? If you will, I can arrange it in a jiffy. Heh?”