store--vague and splendid, like some glittering palace seen suddenly in
the passing of a sunbeam far away.... And presently it would be with him
as though that distant splendour had never shone upon his brain, and he
would perceive nothing ahead but sinister shadows, vast declivities and
darknesses, inhospitable immensities, cold, wild, and terrible things.


II.

Amidst the complex and confused happenings, the impacts from the great
outer world that constituted Mr. Bensington's fame, a shining and active
figure presently became conspicuous--became almost, as it were, a leader
and marshal of these externalities in Mr. Bensington's eyes. This was
Dr. Winkles, that convincing young practitioner, who has already
appeared in this story as the means whereby Redwood was able to convey
the Food to his son. Even before the great outbreak, it was evident that
the mysterious powders Redwood had given him had awakened this
gentleman's interest immensely, and so soon as the first wasps came he
was putting two and two together.

He was the sort of doctor that is in manners, in morals, in methods and
appearance, most succinctly and finally expressed by the word "rising."
He was large and fair, with a hard, alert, superficial,
aluminium-coloured eye, and hair like chalk mud, even-featured and
muscular about the clean-shaven mouth, erect in figure and energetic in
movement, quick and spinning on the heel, and he wore long frock coats,
black silk ties and plain gold studs and chains and his silk hats had a
special shape and brim that made him look wiser and better than anybody.
He looked as young or old as anybody grown up. And after that first
wonderful outbreak he took to Bensington and Redwood and the Food of the