Page:The food of the gods, and how it came to earth.djvu/131

 to Redwood.

Redwood flung a momentary gesture--index finger erect--at the fire. "By Jove!" he said, "he _doesn't_ know!"

"That man," said Redwood, "doesn't know anything. That was his most exasperating quality as a student. Nothing. He passed all his examinations, he had all his facts--and he had just as much knowledge--as a rotating bookshelf containing the _Times Encyclopedia_. And he doesn't know anything _now_. He's Winkles, and incapable of really assimilating anything not immediately and directly related to his superficial self. He is utterly void of imagination and, as a consequence, incapable of knowledge. No one could possibly pass so many examinations and be so well dressed, so well done, and so successful as a doctor without that precise incapacity. That's it. And in spite of all he's seen and heard and been told, there he is--he has no idea whatever of what he has set going. He has got a Boom on, he's working it well on Boomfood, and some one has let him in to this new Royal Baby--and that's Boomier than ever! And the fact that Weser Dreiburg will presently have to face the gigantic problem of a thirty-odd-foot Princess not only hasn't entered his head, but couldn't--it couldn't!"

"There'll be a fearful row," said Bensington.

"In a year or so."

"So soon as they really see she is going on growing."

"Unless after their fashion--they hush it up."

"It's a lot to hush up."

"Rather!"