meal-times?

"Serious consequences," he screamed, "of course! Enormous. Obviously.
Ob-viously. Why, man, it's the only chance you'll ever get of a serious
consequence! And you want to shirk it!" For a moment his indignation was
speechless, "It's downright Wicked!" he said at last, and repeated
explosively, "Wicked!"

But Bensington worked in his laboratory now with more emotion than zest.
He couldn't, tell whether he wanted serious consequences to his life or
not; he was a man of quiet tastes. It was a marvellous discovery, of
course, quite marvellous--but--He had already become the proprietor of
several acres of scorched, discredited property near Hickleybrow, at a
price of nearly £90 an acre, and at times he was disposed to think this
as serious a consequence of speculative chemistry as any unambitious
man, could wish. Of course he was Famous--terribly Famous. More than
satisfying, altogether more than satisfying, was the Fame he had
attained.

But the habit of Research was strong in him....

And at moments, rare moments in the laboratory chiefly, he would find
something else than habit and Cossar's arguments to urge him to his
work. This little spectacled man, poised perhaps with his slashed shoes
wrapped about the legs of his high stool and his hand upon the tweezer
of his balance weights, would have again a flash of that adolescent
vision, would have a momentary perception of the eternal unfolding of
the seed that had been sown in his brain, would see as it were in the
sky, behind the grotesque shapes and accidents of the present, the
coming world of giants and all the mighty things the future has in