"That it asn't, Sir," said Mrs. Skinner with her arms folded, smiling

coyly behind her nose. "We don't seem to have had time to clean it not

since we been 'ere...."

He went upstairs to see some rat-holes that Skinner said would justify a

trap--they certainly were enormous--and discovered that the room in

which the Food of the Gods was mixed with meal and bran was in a quite

disgraceful order. The Skinners were the sort of people who find a use

for cracked saucers and old cans and pickle jars and mustard boxes, and

the place was littered with these. In one corner a great pile of apples

that Skinner had saved was decaying, and from a nail in the sloping part

of the ceiling hung several rabbit skins, upon which he proposed to test

his gift as a furrier. ("There ithn't mutth about furth and thingth that

I don't know," said Skinner.)

Mr. Bensington certainly sniffed critically at this disorder, but he

made no unnecessary fuss, and even when he found a wasp regaling itself

in a gallipot half full of Herakleophorbia IV, he simply remarked mildly

that his substance was better sealed from the damp than exposed to the

air in that manner.

And he turned from these things at once to remark--what had been for

some time in his mind--"I think, Skinner--you know, I shall kill one

of these chicks--as a specimen. I think we will kill it this afternoon,

and I will take it back with me to London."

The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth