CHAPTER II
THE brain-pan of the New Tower of Babel was peopled with numbers.
From an invisible source the numbers dropped rhythmically down through the cooled air of the room, being collected, as in a water-basin, at the table at which the great brain of Metropolis worked, becoming objective under the pencils of his secretaries. These eight young men resembled each other as brothers, which they were not. Although sitting as immovable as statues, of which only the writing fingers of the right hand stirred, yet each single one, with sweat-bedewed brow and parted lips, seemed the personification of Breathlessness.
No head was raised on Freder's entering, Not even his father's.
The lamp under the third loudspeaker glowed white-red.
New York spoke.
Joh Fredersen was comparing the figures
