His stooping shoulders, his pink appearance, his beaming glasses, became

a "feature" of Tunbridge Wells. No one was the least bit unkind to him,

and indeed the place and the Hotel seemed very glad to have the

distinction of his presence. Nothing could rob him of that distinction

now. And though he preferred not to follow the development of his great

invention in the daily papers, yet when he crossed the Lounge of the

Hotel or walked down the Pantiles and heard the whisper, "There he is!

That's him!" it was not dissatisfaction that softened his mouth and

gleamed for a moment in his eye.

This little figure, this minute little figure, launched the Food of the

Gods upon the world! One does not know which is the most amazing, the

greatness or the littleness of these scientific and philosophical men.

You figure him there on the Pantiles, in the overcoat trimmed with fur.

He stands under that chinaware window where the spring spouts, and holds

and sips the glass of chalybeate water in his hand. One bright eye over

the gilt rim is fixed, with an expression of inscrutable severity, on

Cousin Jane, "Mm," he says, and sips.

So we make our souvenir, so we focus and photograph this discoverer of

ours for the last time, and leave him, a mere dot in our foreground, and

pass to the greater picture that, has developed about him, to the story

of his Food, how the scattered Giant Children grew up day by day into a

world that was all too small for them, and how the net of Boomfood Laws

and Boomfood Conventions, which the Boomfood Commission was weaving even

then, drew closer and closer upon them with every year of their growth,

175

The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth