t 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 arm-chair 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,

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it would (if you follow me) go thus--

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