ready than many
a hen that is married and settled and still growing, still in their
first soft yellow plumage (just faintly marked with brown along the
back), he knew indeed that his happiest day had come.

At Mr. Skinner's urgency he went into the runs but after he had been
pecked through the cracks in his shoes once or twice he got out again,
and watched these monsters through the wire netting. He peered close to
the netting, and followed their movements as though he had never seen a
chick before in his life.

"Whath they'll be when they're grown up ith impothible to think," said
Mr. Skinner.

"Big as a horse," said Mr. Bensington.

"Pretty near," said Mr. Skinner.

"Several people could dine off a wing!" said Mr. Bensington. "They'd cut
up into joints like butcher's meat."

"They won't go on growing at thith pathe though," said Mr. Skinner.

"No?" said Mr. Bensington.

"No," said Mr. Skinner. "I know thith thort. They begin rank, but they
don't go on, bleth you! No."

There was a pause.

"Itth management," said Mr. Skinner modestly.

Mr. Bensington turned his glasses on him suddenly.

"We got 'em almoth ath big at the other plathe," said Mr. Skinner, with
his better eye piously uplifted and letting himself go a little; "me and
the mithith."

Mr. Bensington made his usual general inspection of the premises, but he
speedily returned to the new run. It was, you know, in truth ever so
much more than he had dared to expect. The course of science is so
tortuous and so slow; after the clear promises and before the practical
realisation arrives there comes almost always year after year of
intricate contrivance, and here--here was the Foods of the Gods arriving
after less than a year of testing! It seemed too good--too good. That
Hope Deferred which is the daily food of the scientific imagination was
to be his no more! So at least it seemed to him then. He came back and
stared at these stupendous chicks of his, time after time.

"Let me see," he said. "They're ten days old. And by the side of an
ordinary chick I should fancy--about six or seven times as big...."

"Itth about time we artht for a rithe in thkrew," said Mr. Skinner to
his wife. "He'th ath pleathed ath Punth about the way we got thothe
chickth on in the further run--pleathed ath Punth he ith."

He bent confidentially towards her. "Thinkth it'th that old food of
hith," he said behind his hands and made a noise of suppressed laughter
in his pha