One morning, we were summoned to the dining-room — the servants, the family, the dependents — and told that there the sole hope of our College awaited us. Thus it was with considerable anticipation that we gathered to see this most interesting individual.

We found before us a small, gray man in a gray silk coat who surveyed us as we entered, clearly assessing even the academicians among us for resale. We hung together — me at my mother’s arm. He was a compact gentleman, and one could easily imagine that, in his earlier years, he had been adept at springing and vaulting.

Mr. 03-01 came before us, and said, “The Novanglian College of Lucidity has entered a new and even more astonishing chapter. Allow me to introduce Mr. Sharpe. He will address you. Mr. Sharpe, would you prefer to sit or stand?”

“I shall pace,” said Mr. Sharpe. “Thank you, Mr. Gitney.” Mr. Sharpe began his rounds. With Mr. Sharpe, I found in the years that followed, there was no facing a person, unless for assessment. Otherwise, he was turned always to the side, his hands clasped behind him or held before him, never at his sides; him choosing to subsist in the manner of those Ægyptian friezes where men, lateral with antiquity, tally their grain.

To us he said: “Point A: My friends, the question we must ask ourselves is this: Can a forest animal eat itself for sustenance? Have you seen a badger devour its own flanks? Indeed, good people, can any living thing feast upon its own flesh indefinitely, and yet remain whole? Outside of the menagerie of fancy, the answer is ‘No.’ A fox, let us say, that pursued this course should be involved in perpetual cartwheels.” He paused and put his hands before his mouth, as if pondering.

We stared at him in bewilderment.

He swiveled to present his other profile, and continued: “I use this quaint illustration not only to put you at your ease by eliciting laughter at a risible scenario — for I am a man who appreciates a jest — and I found myself, last night at the inn, quite delighted by the thought of the fox, look you, the comical fox, his own white teeth bloodied with his own blood, gagging on his own pelt as he swallowed his legs — down the gullet! — but also to make a point. Point B. A point of great gravity: No institution, like no fox, may long be sustained on its own flesh. We must devour elsewhere if we are not to devour ourselves, and so perish!

“Point C: You gentlemen have done marvelous work here. Mr. Gitney has shown me your publications. Your scrutiny into the most obscure sciences has attracted the notice of the world. But you cannot simply pursue these ends without results that will aid the common man. This is a revolutionary age, my friends. You have been living in the turrets of a fairy-castle — which is a fine view — excellent prospect — until you realize that fairy-castles, my friends, consist in their architecture of tea-cake and icing. They are (a) frail; they are (b) sticky. And there are those below the battlements of this your confectionary keep who starve. It is time, sirs, madams, to become part of the world. It is time to enter the market, rather than feeding on your own stale flesh.”

This all seemed excellent sense; an opportunity for renewal and usefulness.

Mr. Sharpe surveyed us. “Which one of you is the painter?”

07-03 raised his hand.

“Your name, sir?”

“07-03,” he said.

“Eh —,” interposed Mr. 03-01, rising. He explained to us, “Eh — I am afraid . . . I am afraid that our system of metric designation has come to an end. Mr. Sharpe, reviewing the practice, has determined that it contributes to hierarchy and rank. So we shall . . . cast aside our numbers, my friends . . . like shackles . . . and instead . . . names. Names for all.”

“It is a glorious new day,” said Mr. Sharpe.

Dr. 09-01 — now abruptly Trefusis — raised his hand. He remarked, “The alchemical worm Ouroboros that encircles the world devours itself.”

“Pardon?” said Mr. Sharpe.

“The alchemical worm Ouroboros of ancient myth. Its teeth are sunk in its tail.”

“Precisely,” said Mr. Sharpe. “Precisely. This is the kind of bizarre academic interlude that profits absolutely no one.” He turned back to the painter. “Sir, you, Mr. Painter. Do you see the spots where pictures lately hung, now sold off to pay the debts of your academy’s intransigence? I would like a simple mural there depicting the sciences and arts allegorified, sitting on top of Utility.”

The painter hesitated. “Sitting atop Utility? Are they . . . hurting him? What is Utility?”

“Perhaps an ox,” said Mr. Sharpe. “With an humble countenance.”