[KEN hesitates.]
KEN. I'm not kidding myself.--I've been doing this more to help you.
MARTIN. Listen, Ken. Even if you don't go, you should know Russian so you can read Soviet architectural journals. The years we wasted on dead languages!--Russia's alive. They're doing things, new things, big things! Russian is the language of the next great sweep in world progress.
TIPPY. Sez you.
MARTIN. You read the New York Times. Where does the real news come from?
TIPPY. That depends on who is shooting which.
MARTIN. Shooting isn't news. War isn't news. War is old--atavistic, a confession of failure, evidence of retrogression. News deals with new things: progress, science, art, invention, the conquest of nature. That's real news. And where is it coming from today?
TIPPY. All right, all right. When you have learned six thousand more verbs, each with a hundred irregular forms, then you can read it in Pravda.
[TIPPY carries board out to kitchen, MARTIN sits at table, KEN with him. MARTIN finds place in book and points to a word.]
KEN. [Slowly, pronouncing all syllables in monotone, as TIPPY enters.] Al-yek-tree-feet-see-row-von-nuim ...