Page:The food of the gods, and how it came to earth.djvu/275



To which there sprang up a competing variety of repartees, for the most part impolite. The most popular and best adapted for general use appears to have been "_Shut_ it," or, in a voice of scornful detachment--"_Gam I_"

There were others almost equally popular.

III.
What was he seeking? He wanted something the pigmy world did not give, some end which the pigmy world prevented his attaining, prevented even his seeing clearly, which he was never to see clearly. It was the whole gigantic social side of this lonely dumb monster crying out for his race, for the things akin to him, for something he might love and something he might serve, for a purpose he might comprehend and a command he could obey. And, you know, all this was _dumb_, raged dumbly within him, could not even, had he met a fellow giant, have found outlet and expression in speech. All the life he knew was the dull round of the village, all the speech he knew was the talk of the cottage, that failed and collapsed at the bare outline of his least gigantic need. He knew nothing of money, this monstrous simpleton, nothing of trade, nothing of the complex pretences upon which the social fabric of the little folks was built. He needed, he needed--Whatever he needed, he never found his need.

A11 through the day and the summer ni