Page:The food of the gods, and how it came to earth.djvu/132



"I wonder what they'll do?"

"They never do anything--Royal tact."

"They're bound to do something."

"Perhaps _she_ will." "O Lord! Yes."

"They'll suppress her. Such things have been known."

Redwood burst into desperate laughter. "The redundant royalty--the bouncing babe in the Iron Mask!" he said. "They'll have to put her in the tallest tower of the old Weser Dreiburg castle and make holes in the ceilings as she grows from floor to floor! Well, I'm in the very same pickle. And Cossar and his three boys. And--Well, well."

"There'll be a fearful row," Bensington repeated, not joining in the laughter. "A _fearful_ row."

"I suppose," he argued, "you've really thought it out thoroughly, Redwood. You're quite sure it wouldn't be wiser to warn Winkles, wean your little boy gradually, and--and rely upon the Theoretical Triumph?"

"I wish to goodness you'd spend half an hour in my nursery when the Food's a little late," said Redwood, with a note of exasperation in his voice; "then you wouldn't talk like that, Bensington. Besides--Fancy warning Winkles... No! The tide of this thing has caught us unawares, and whether we're frightened or whether we're not--_we've got to swim!_"

"I suppose we have," said Bensington, staring at his toes. "Yes. We've got to swim. And your boy will have to swim, and Cossar's boys--