The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth | Page 4

very
slowly, and that when this substance was used up by growth, it was
only very slowly replaced, and that meanwhile the organism had to
mark time. He compared his unknown substance to oil in machinery. A
growing animal was rather like an engine, he suggested, that can move
a certain distance and must then be oiled before it can run again. ("But
why shouldn't one oil the engine from without?" said Mr. Bensington,
when he read the paper.) And all this, said Redwood, with the

delightful nervous inconsecutiveness of his class, might very probably
be found to throw a light upon the mystery of certain of the ductless
glands. As though they had anything to do with it at all!
In a subsequent communication Redwood went further. He gave a
perfect Brock's benefit of diagrams--exactly like rocket trajectories they
were; and the gist of it--so far as it had any gist--was that the blood of
puppies and kittens and the sap of sunflowers and the juice of
mushrooms in what he called the "growing phase" differed in the
proportion of certain elements from their blood and sap on the days
when they were not particularly growing.
And when Mr. Bensington, after holding the diagrams sideways and
upside down, began to see what this difference was, a great amazement
came upon him. Because, you see, the difference might probably be
due to the presence of just the very substance he had recently been
trying to isolate in his researches upon such alkaloids as are most
stimulating to the nervous system. He put down Redwood's paper on
the patent reading-desk that swung inconveniently from his arm-chair,
took off his gold-rimmed spectacles, breathed on them and wiped them
very carefully.
"By Jove!" said Mr. Bensington.
Then replacing his spectacles again he turned to the patent reading-desk,
which immediately, as his elbow came against its arm, gave a
coquettish squeak and deposited the paper, with all its diagrams in a
dispersed and crumpled state, on the floor. "By Jove!" said Mr.
Bensington, straining his stomach over the armchair with a patient
disregard of the habits of this convenience, and then, finding the
pamphlet still out of reach, he went down on all fours in pursuit. It was
on the floor that the idea of calling it the Food of the Gods came to
him....
For you see, if he was right and Redwood was right, then by injecting
or administering this new substance of his in food, he would do away
with the "resting phase," and instead of growth going on in this fashion,

[Illustration] it would (if you follow me) go thus--
[Illustration]
IV.
The night after his conversation with Redwood Mr. Bensington could
scarcely sleep a wink. He did seem once to get into a sort of doze, but it
was only for a moment, and then he dreamt he had dug a deep hole into
the earth and poured in tons and tons of the Food of the Gods, and the
earth was swelling and swelling, and all the boundaries of the countries
were bursting, and the Royal Geographical Society was all at work like
one great guild of tailors letting out the equator....
That of course was a ridiculous dream, but it shows the state of mental
excitement into which Mr. Bensington got and the real value he
attached to his idea, much better than any of the things he said or did
when he was awake and on his guard. Or I should not have mentioned
it, because as a general rule I do not think it is at all interesting for
people to tell each other about their dreams.
By a singular coincidence Redwood also had a dream that night, and
his dream was this:--
[Illustration] It was a diagram done in fire upon a long scroll of the
abyss. And he (Redwood) was standing on a planet before a sort of
black platform lecturing about the new sort of growth that was now
possible, to the More than Royal Institution of Primordial
Forces--forces which had always previously, even in the growth of
races, empires, planetary systems, and worlds, gone so:--
[Illustration]
And even in some cases so:--
[Illustration]
And he was explaining to them quite lucidly and convincingly that

these slow, these even retrogressive methods would be very speedily
quite put out of fashion by his discovery.
Ridiculous of course! But that too shows--
That either dream is to be regarded as in any way significant or
prophetic beyond what I have categorically said, I do not for one
moment suggest.
CHAPTER THE
SECOND.
THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM.
I.
Mr. Bensington proposed originally to try this stuff, so soon as he was
really able to prepare it, upon tadpoles. One always does try this sort of
thing upon tadpoles to