They presented themselves as Parish Councillors, stolid and clinging

phonographically to prearranged statements. "We hold you responsible,

Mister Bensington, for the injury inflicted upon our parish, Sir. We

hold you responsible."

A firm of solicitors, with a snake of a style--Banghurst, Brown, Flapp,

Codlin, Brown, Tedder, and Snoxton, they called themselves, and appeared

invariably in the form of a small rufous cunning-looking gentleman with

a pointed nose--said vague things about damages, and there was a

polished personage, her ladyship's agent, who came in suddenly upon

Redwood one day and asked, "Well, Sir, and what do you propose to do?"

To which Redwood answered that he proposed to discontinue supplying the

food for the child, if he or Bensington were bothered any further about

the matter. "I give it for nothing as it is," he said, "and the child

will yell your village to ruins before it dies if you don't let it have

the stuff. The child's on your hands, and you have to keep it. Lady

Wondershoot can't always be Lady Bountiful and Earthly Providence of her

parish without sometimes meeting a responsibility, you know."

The mischief's done," Lady Wondershoot decided when they told her--with

expurgations--what Redwood had said.

The mischief's done," echoed the Vicar.

Though indeed as a matter of fact the mischief was only beginning.

The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth