"There's a poetry to it, engineer's poetry...it suggests --average, you know--certainly you have two lobes, don't you, symmetrical about the rocket's intended azimuth... , too-smashing someone with a hoe or a club..." off on a voyage of his own here, smiling at no one in particular, bringing in the popular wartime expression , quarterstaff technique, peasant humor, phallic comedy dating back to the ancient Greeks...Slothrop's first impulse is to get back to what that Plas is into, but something about the man, despite obvious membership in the plot, keeps him listening...an innocence, maybe a try at being friendly in the only way he has available, sharing what engages and runs him, a love for the Word."