Manchurian Books

What is it?--'Marr's a maker,
men say!'"
My uncle nodded and gurgled some quotation that died away.
"Jolly good poem, George," he said in an aside to me.
"Well, it's about a carpenter and a poetic Victorian child, you know,
and some shavin's. The child made no end out of the shavin's. So
might you. Powder 'em. They might be anything. Soak 'em in
jipper,--Xylo-tobacco! Powder'em and get a little tar and turpentinous
smell in,--wood-packing for hot baths--a Certain Cure for the scourge
of Influenza! There's all these patent grain foods,--what Americans call
cereals. I believe I'm right, sir, in saying they're sawdust."
"No!" said my uncle, removing his cigar; "as far as I can find out it's
really grain,--spoilt grain.... I've been going into that."
"Well, there you are!" said Ewart. "Say it's spoilt grain. It carried
out my case just as well. Your modern commerce is no more buying and
selling than sculpture. It's mercy--it's salvation. It's rescue work! It
takes all sorts of fallen commodities by the hand and raises them. Cana
isn't in it.


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