aid Bensington, regarding his fingers with more resignation than
he had hitherto displayed.

"Practically the thing _must_ come out. People will hear of this child,
connect it up with our hens and things, and the whole thing will come
round to my wife.... How she will take it I haven't the remotest idea."

"It _is_ difficult," said Mr. Bensington, "to form any plan--certainly."

He removed his glasses and wiped them carefully.

"It is another instance," he generalised, "of the thing that is
continually happening. We--if indeed I may presume to the
adjective--_scientific_ men--we work of course always for a theoretical
result--a purely theoretical result. But, incidentally, we do set forces
in operation--_new_ forces. We mustn't control them--and nobody else
_can_. Practically, Redwood, the thing is out of our hands. _We_ supply
the material--"

"And they," said Redwood, turning to the window, "get the experience."

"So far as this trouble down in Kent goes I am not disposed to worry
further."

"Unless they worry us."

"Exactly. And if they like to muddle about with solicitors and
pettifoggers and legal obstructions and weighty considerations of the
tomfool order, until they have got a number of new gigantic species of
vermin well established--Things always _have_ been in a muddle,
Redwood."

Redwood traced a twisted, tangled line in the air.

"And our real interest lies at present with your boy."

Redwood turned about and came and stared at his collaborator.

"What do you think of him, Bensington? You can look at this business
with a greater detachment than I can. What am I to do about him?"

"Go on feeding him."

"On Herakleophorbia?"

"On Herakleophorbia."

"And then he'll grow."

"He'll grow, as far as I can calculate from the hens and the wasps, to
the height of about five-and-thirty feet--with everything in
proportion---"

"And then what'll he do?"

"That," said Mr. Bensington, "is just what makes the whole thing so
interesting."

"Confound it, man! Think of his clothes."

"And when he's grown up," said Redwood, "he'll only be one solitary
Gulliver in a pigmy world."

Mr. Bensington's eye over his gold rim was pregnant.

"Why solitary?" he said, and repeated still more darkly, "_Why_
solitary?"

"But you don't propose---?"

"I said," said Mr. Bensington, with the self-complacency of a man who
has produced a good significant saying, "Why solitary?"

"Meaning that one might bring u