The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth | Page 7

sword of
Damocles, so to speak, with an expression of sad detachment. "You
don't want to run thith Farm for profit. No, Thir. Ith all the thame, Thir.
Ekthperimenth! Prethithely."
He said they could go to the farm at once. He was doing nothing at
Dunton Green except a little tailoring. "It ithn't the thmart plathe I
thought it wath, and what I get ithent thkarthely worth having," he said,
"tho that if it ith any convenienth to you for uth to come...."
And in a week Mr. and Mrs. Skinner were installed in the farm, and the
jobbing carpenter from Hickleybrow was diversifying the task of
erecting runs and henhouses with a systematic discussion of Mr.
Bensington.
"I haven't theen much of 'im yet," said Mr. Skinner. "But as far as I can
make 'im out 'e theems to be a thtewpid o' fool."
"I thought 'e seemed a bit Dotty," said the carpenter from Hickleybrow.

"'E fanthieth 'imself about poultry," said Mr. Skinner. "O my goodneth!
You'd think nobody knew nothin' about poultry thept 'im."
"'E looks like a 'en," said the carpenter from Hickleybrow; "what with
them spectacles of 'is."
Mr. Skinner came closer to the carpenter from Hickleybrow, and spoke
in a confidential manner, and one sad eye regarded the distant village,
and one was bright and wicked. "Got to be meathured every blethed
day--every blethed 'en, 'e thays. Tho as to thee they grow properly.
What oh ... eh? Every blethed 'en--every blethed day."
And Mr. Skinner put up his hand to laugh behind it in a refined and
contagious manner, and humped his shoulders very much--and only the
other eye of him failed to participate in his laughter. Then doubting if
the carpenter had quite got the point of it, he repeated in a penetrating
whisper; "Meathured!"
"'E's worse than our old guvnor; I'm dratted if 'e ain't," said the
carpenter from Hickleybrow.
II.
Experimental work is the most tedious thing in the world (unless it be
the reports of it in the Philosophical Transactions), and it seemed a
long time to Mr. Bensington before his first dream of enormous
possibilities was replaced by a crumb of realisation. He had taken the
Experimental Farm in October, and it was May before the first inklings
of success began. Herakleophorbia I. and II. and III. had to be tried, and
failed; there was trouble with the rats of the Experimental Farm, and
there was trouble with the Skinners. The only way to get Skinner to do
anything he was told to do was to dismiss him. Then he would nib his
unshaven chin--he was always unshaven most miraculously and yet
never bearded--with a flattened hand, and look at Mr. Bensington with
one eye, and over him with the other, and say, "Oo, of courthe, Thir--if
you're theriouth!"
But at last success dawned. And its herald was a letter in the long

slender handwriting of Mr. Skinner.
"The new Brood are out," wrote Mr. Skinner, "and don't quite like the
look of them. Growing very rank--quite unlike what the similar lot was
before your last directions was given. The last, before the cat got them,
was a very nice, stocky chick, but these are Growing like thistles. I
never saw. They peck so hard, striking above boot top, that am unable
to give exact Measures as requested. They are regular Giants, and
eating as such. We shall want more com very soon, for you never saw
such chicks to eat. Bigger than Bantams. Going on at this rate, they
ought to be a bird for show, rank as they are. Plymouth Rocks won't be
in it. Had a scare last night thinking that cat was at them, and when I
looked out at the window could have sworn I see her getting in under
the wire. The chicks was all awake and pecking about hungry when I
went out, but could not see anything of the cat. So gave them a peck of
corn, and fastened up safe. Shall be glad to know if the Feeding to be
continued as directed. Food you mixed is pretty near all gone, and do
not like to mix any more myself on account of the accident with the
pudding. With best wishes from us both, and soliciting continuance of
esteemed favours,
"Respectfully yours,
"ALFRED NEWTON SKINNER."
The allusion towards the end referred to a milk pudding with which
some Herakleophorbia II. had got itself mixed with painful and very
nearly fatal results to the Skinners.
But Mr. Bensington, reading between the lines saw in this rankness of
growth the attainment of his long sought goal. The next morning he
alighted at Urshot station, and in the bag in his hand he carried, sealed
in three tins, a supply of the Food of