The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mathematicians, by Arthur Feldman

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Title: The Mathematicians

Author: Arthur Feldman

Illustrator: A. Lake

Release Date: June 17, 2009 [EBook #29140]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE MATHEMATICIANS

BY ARTHUR FELDMAN

_We gave this story to a very competent, and very pretty gal artist.
We said, "Read this carefully, dream on it, and come up with an
illustration." A week later, she returned with the finished drawing.
"The hero," she said. We did a double take. "Hey! That's not the
hero." She looked us straight in the eye. "Can you prove it?" She
had us. We couldn't, and she left hurriedly to go home and cook
dinner for her family. And what were they having? Frog legs--what
else?_

They were in the garden. "Now, Zoe," said Zenia Hawkins to her
nine-year-old daughter, "quit fluttering around, and papa will tell you
a story."

Zoe settled down in the hammock. "A true story, papa?"

"It all happened exactly like I'm going to tell you," said Drake
Hawkins, pinching Zoe's rosy cheek. "Now: two thousand and eleven years
ago in 1985, figuring by the earthly calendar of that time, a tribe of
beings from the Dog-star Sirius invaded the earth."

"And what did these beings look like, father?"

"Like humans in many, many respects. They each had two arms, two legs
and all the other organs that humans are endowed with."

"Wasn't there any difference at all between the Star-beings and the
humans, papa?"

"There was. The newcomers, each and all, had a pair of wings covered
with green feathers growing from their shoulders, and long, purple
tails."

"How many of these beings were there, father?"

"Exactly three million and forty-one male adults and three female
adults. These creatures first appeared on Earth on the island of
Sardinia. In five weeks' time they were the masters of the entire
globe."

"Didn't the Earth-lings fight back, papa?"

"The humans warred against the in