Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/50

 "That it asn't, Sir," said Mrs. Skinner with her arms folded, smiling coyly behind her nose. "We don't seem to have 'ad time to clean it not since we been 'ere"

He went upstairs to see some ratholes that Skinner said would justify a trap—they certainly were enormous—and discovered that the room in which the Food of the Gods was mixed with meal and bran was in a quite disgraceful disorder. The Skinners were the sort of people who find a use for cracked saucers and old cans and pickle jars and mustard boxes, and the place was littered with these. In one corner a great pile of apples that Skinner had saved was decaying; and from a nail in the sloping part of the ceiling hung several rabbit skins upon which he proposed to test his gift as a furrier. ("There ithn't mutth about furth and thingth that I don't know," said Skinner.)

Mr. Bensington certainly sniffed critically at this disorder, but he made no unnecessary fuss; and even when he found a wasp regaling itself in a gallipot half full of Herakleophorbia IV., he simply remarked mildly that his substance was better sealed from the damp than exposed to the air in that manner.

And he turned from these things at once to remark—what had been for some time in his mind—"I think, you know Skinner—I shall kill one of these chicks—as a specimen. I think we will kill it this afternoon, and I will take it back with me to London."

He pretended to peer into another gallipot and then took off his spectacles to wipe them.

"I should like," he said, "I should like very much