d not have suffered such a
pang for my lost time and carfare.

But wellgroomed and feminine were alike inapplicable adjectives.
Towering above me--she was at least five foot ten while I am of average
height--she strode up and down the kitchen which apparently was office
and laboratory also, waving her arms, speaking too exuberantly, the
antithesis of moderation and restraint. She was an aggregate of
cylinders, big and small. Her shapeless legs were columns with large
flatheeled shoes for their bases, supporting the inverted pediment of
great hips. Her too short, greasespotted skirt was a mighty barrel and
on it was placed the tremendous drum of her torso.

"A little more work," she rumbled, "a few interesting problems solved,
and the Metamorphizer will change the basic structure of any plant
inoculated with it."

Large as she was, her face and head were disproportionately big. Her
eyes I can only speak of as enormous. I dare say there are some who
would have called them beautiful. In moments of intensity they bored
into mine and held them till I felt quite uncomfortable.

"Think of what this discovery means," she urged me. "Think of it,
Weener. Plants will be capable of making use of anything within reach.
Understand, Weener, anything. Rocks, quartz, decomposed
granite--anything."

She took a gold victorian toothpick from the pocket of her mannish
jacket and used it energetically. I shuddered. "Unfortunately," she went
on, a little indistinctly, "unfortunately, I lack resources for further
experiment right now--"

This too, I thought despairingly. A slight cash investment--just enough
to get production started--how many wishful times Ive heard it. I was a
salesman, not a sucker, and anyway I was for the moment without liquid
capital.

"It will change the face of the world, Weener. No more usedup areas, no
more frantic scrabbling for the few bits of naturally rich ground, no
more struggle to get artificial fertilizers to wornout soil in the face
of ignorance and poverty."

She thrust out a hand--surprisingly finely and economically molded,
barely missing a piledup heap of dishes crowned by a flowerpot trailing
droopy tendrils. Excitedly she paced the floor largely taken up by jars
and flats of vegetation, some green and flourishing, others gray and
sickly, all constricting her movements as did the stove supporting a
glass tank, robbed of the goldfish which should rightfully have gaped
against its sides and con