Page:The food of the gods, and how it came to earth.djvu/182



"Yes," said the doctor. "Yes. I think so. It has a strong resemblance at any rate to some sort of epidemic. Probably Epidemic Hypertrophy will meet the case."

"Epidemic!" said the Vicar. "You don't mean it's contagious?"

The doctor smiled gently and rubbed one hand against the other. "That I couldn't say," he said.

"But---!" cried the Vicar, round-eyed. "If it's _catching_--it--it affects _us!_"

He made a stride up the road and turned about.

"I've just been there," he cried. "Hadn't I better---? I'll go home at once and have a bath and fumigate my clothes."

The doctor regarded his retreating back for a moment, and then turned about and went towards his own house....

But on the way he reflected that one case had been in the village a month without any one catching the disease, and after a pause of hesitation decided to be as brave as a doctor should be and take the risks like a man.

And indeed he was well advised by his second thoughts. Growth was the last thing that could ever happen to him again. He could have eaten--and the Vicar could have eaten--Herakleophorbia by the truckful. For growth had done with them. Growth had done with these two gentlemen for evermore.