taining instead some slimy growth topped by a
bubbling brown scum. I simply couldnt understand how any woman could so
far oppose what must have been her natural instinct as to live and work
in such a slatternly place. It wasnt just her kitchen which was
disordered and dirty; her person too was slovenly and possibly unclean.
The lank gray hair swishing about her ears was dark, perhaps from vigor,
but more likely from frugality with soap and water. Her massive,
heavychinned face was untouched by makeup and suggested an equal
innocence of other attentions.

"Fertilizers! Poo! Expedients, Weener--miserable, makeshift expedients!"
Her unavoidable eyes bit into mine. "What is a fertilizer? A tidbit, a
pap, a lollypop. Indians use fish; Chinese, nightsoil; agricultural
chemists concoct tasty tonics of nitrogen and potash--where's your
progress? Putting a mechanical whip on a buggy instead of inventing an
internal combustion engine. Ive gone directly to the heart of the
matter. Like Watt. Like Maxwell. Like Almroth Wright. No use being held
back because youve only poor materials to work with--leap ahead with
imagination. Change the plant itself, Weener, change the plant itself!"

It was no longer politeness which held me. If I could have freed myself
from her eyes I would have escaped thankfully.

"Nourish'm on anything," she shouted, rubbing the round end of the
toothpick vigorously into her ear. "Sow a barren waste, a worthless
slagheap with lifegiving corn or wheat, inoculate the plants with the
Metamorphizer--and you have a crop fatter than Iowa's or the Ukraine's
best. The whole world will teem with abundance."

Perhaps--but what was the sales angle? Where did I come in? I didnt know
a dandelion from a toadstool and was quite content to keep my distance
from nature. Had she inserted the ad merely to lure a listener? Her
whole procedure was irregular: not a word about territories and
commissions. If I could bring her to the point of mentioning the
necessary investment, maybe I could get away gracefully. "You said you
were stuck," I prompted, resolved to get the painful interview over
with.

"Stuck? Stuck? Oh--money to perfect the Metamorphizer. Luckily it will
do it itself."

"I don't catch."

"Look about you--what do you see?"

I glanced around and started to say, a measuring glass on a dirty plate
next to half a cold fried egg, but she stopped me with a sweep of her
arm which came dangerously close to the flasks