THE MATHEMATICIANS 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? 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." They 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
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