Page:The food of the gods, and how it came to earth.djvu/116

 what they saw there. There was young Caterham, for example, cousin of the Earl of Pewterstone, and one of the most promising of English politicians, who, taking the risk of being thought a faddist, wrote a long article in the _Nineteenth Century and After_ to suggest its total suppression. And--in certain of his moods, there was Bensington.

"They don't seem to realise--" he said to Cossar.

"No, they don't."

"And do we? Sometimes, when I think of what it means--This poor child of Redwood's--And, of course, your three... Forty feet high, perhaps! After all, _ought_ we to go on with it?"

"Go on with it!" cried Cossar, convulsed with inelegant astonishment and pitching his note higher than ever. "Of _course_ you'll go on with it! What d'you think you were made for? Just to loaf about between meal-times?

"Serious consequences," he screamed, "of course! Enormous. Obviously. Ob-viously. Why, man, it's the only chance you'll ever get of a serious consequence! And you want to shirk it!" For a moment his indignation was speechless, "It's downright Wicked!" he said at last, and repeated explosively, "Wicked!"

But Bensington worked in his laboratory now with more emotion than zest. He couldn't, tell whether he wanted serious consequences to his life or not; he was a man of quiet tastes. It was a marvellous discovery, of course, quite marvellous--but--He had already become the proprietor