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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:--

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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:--

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And even in some cases so:--

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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 begin with; this being what tadpoles are for.
And it was agreed that he should conduct the expe