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of the consuming public. It's just like this—the consumers still believe in natural products, and so we have to go on reproducing them instead of starting right away on our own lines and bringing out new and original commodities far in advance of anything Nature can do. How we're stultified you'll see as we work through. We just have to copy, anyway, in place of originating. We make oysters, for example. Now quite a while ago, our head chemist Major Madison B. Jefferson invented a new edible way, finer in every essential than the oyster; but the consumers wouldn't have it: they shied at it, and declared it wasn't wholesome; and we had the whole stock on our hands, and had to vat it down again, and recolour it, and make tomatoes of it. Then Then they took it down and just chaired it round. Of course, we have to say we grow the products—that's another effect of popular prejudice; if we had said we made those tomatoes, the public would have started right off again, and talked of "adulteration," although our tomatoes whip Nature's by 50 per cent. in all the elements of nutrition and flavour. Just taste this one.'

"We hesitated, and the director, perceiving it, promptly consumed another from the same case. Thus reassured, we ventured to nibble at the artificial vegetable, and found it excellent in every respect—decidedly superior to the natural product, as he had stated.

"'But,' we asked, 'do you not suffer considerable losses when these products—necessarily perishable in the natural course of things—begin to decay?'

"'That's just another point where we show our superiority to Nature. Our products don't decay; on the contrary, they improve by keeping. Here is a tomato seven years old,' he continued, taking down another case. 'Try it.'

"We did. The other was not to be compared with it. The older tomato had matured and mellowed, the skin having a finer colour and lovelier gloss, the flesh possessing a firmer body and more delicate flavour; it was far in advance of any tomato we had ever conceived.

"'Wonderful!' we exclaimed.

"'A very simple matter,' said the director. 'All that is required is a thorough mastery of chemistry. In all our goods we employ a special patent preservative of our own, which is naturally a secret. We calculate it to be worth one hundred and fifty quadrillions of dollars.

"'But let us show you how we make oysters! See, these are the tanks which contain the mixture—the compound which forms the body of the bivalve. This tank contains the beard-mixture; and this one the gristle.'

"'And what are the principal ingredients?'

"'Glue, made from horses' heels. This is a very important factor in our products. This glue, after undergoing a peculiar treatment which prevents its hardening and losing its elasticity in the course of years, is flavoured and coloured in various ways. This great tank contains the composition for the internal parts of the oyster—nearly black, you perceive; that tank over there contains the compound for the flesh that covers the internal parts; that tank farther along holds the beard-mixture; and the one beyond that the gristle which attaches the oyster to the shell. First, the flesh of the oyster is run into moulds, each oyster being in two parts; then the inside of the animal is run into another mould, and the two halves of the body are automatically placed around it and cemented together.

"'Meanwhile the beards have been rolled, stamped, frilled, and coloured along the edge by special automatic machinery. The body of the oyster then passes to the fixing-up room, where the beard is cemented to it by hand, and finishing touches of colour added; and then it passes along and has the gristle attached and the oyster itself is complete,'