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 Odontokeros again interrupted to ask what manner of beast a Port Canning Company might be.

"I cannot honestly say", admitted the lecturer, "that I am well informed on that point. I have never been able to ascertain what its external aspect was, or to what genus of living creatures it belonged. But I have been informed that it was created by men, that its drink was the heart's blood of men, and that it waxed very fat on this nourishment. I ought to mention that the race of men is extraordinarily improvident. They are perpetually occupied in devising means for their own destruction. The weapons that they use are a proof of this fact. I have heard that they will collect by thousands in an open place and deliberately slay one another with these weapons. My own belief is that this Port Canning Company was a demoniac form created by men for their mutual destruction.

That, however, is irrelevant to the subject of