'It's an absolute gold-mine, Mr Hoddy, honestly it is.'
'I'll believe that when I hear it.'
'It's a thing so simple and amazing most people wouldn't even bother to do it.' He had it now—something he had actually been thinking seriously about for a long time, something he'd always wanted to do. He leaned across and put his teacup carefully on the table beside Mr Hoddy's, then, not knowing what to do with his hands, placed them on his knees, palms downward.
'Well, come on man, what is it?'
'It's maggots,' Claud answered softly.
Mr Hoddy jerked back as though someone had squirted water in his face. 'Maggots!' he said, aghast. 'Maggots? What on earth do you mean, maggots?' Claud had forgotten that this word was almost unmentionable in any selfrespecting grocer's shop. Ada began to giggle, but Clarice glanced at her so malignantly the giggle died on her mouth.
'That's where the money is, starting a maggot factory.'
'Are you trying to be funny?'
'Honestly, Mr Hoddy, it may sound a bit queer, and that's simply because you never heard it before, but it's a little gold-mine.'
'A maggot-factory! Really now, Cubbage! Please be sensible!'
Glance wished her father wouldn't call him Cubbage.
'You never heard speak of a maggot-factory, Mr Hoddy?'
'I certainly have not!'
'There's maggot-factories going now, real big companies with managers and directors and all, and you know what, Mr Hoddy? They're making millions!'
'Nonsense, man.'
'And you know why they're making millions?' Claud paused, but he did not notice now that his listener's face was slowly turning yellow. 'It's because of the enormous demand for maggots, Mr Hoddy.'
At that moment Mr Hoddy was listening also to other voices, the voices of his customers across the counter—Mrs Rabbits, for instance, as he sliced off her ration of butter, Mrs Rabbits with her brown moustache and always talking so loud and saying well, well, well; he could hear her now saying 'Well, well, well Mr Hoddy, so your Clarice got married last week, did she. Very nice too, I must say, and what was it you said her husband does, Mr Hoddy?'
He owns a maggot-factory, Mrs Rabbits.
No, thank you, he told himself, watching Claud with his small, hostile eyes. No thank you very much indeed. I don't want that.
'I can't say,' he announced primly, 'that I myself have ever had occasion to purchase a maggot.'
'Now you come to mention it, Mr Hoddy, nor have I. Nor has many other people we know. But let me ask you something else. How many times you have occasion to purchase… a crown wheel and pinion, for instance?'
This was a shrewd question and Claud permitted himself a slow mawkish smile.
'What's that got to do with maggots?'
'Exactly this—that certain people buy certain things, see. You never bought a crown wheel and pinion in your life, but that don't say there isn't men getting rich this very moment making them—because there is. It's the same with maggots!'
'Would you mind telling me who these unpleasant people are who buy maggots?'
'Maggots are bought by fishermen, Mr Hoddy. Amateur fishermen. There's thousands and thousands of fishermen all over the country going out every week-end fishing the rivers and all of them wanting maggots. Willing to pay good money for them, too. You go along the river there anywhere you like above Marlow on a Sunday and you'll see them lining the banks. Sitting there one beside the other simply lining the banks of both sides.'
'Those men don't buy maggots. They go down the bottom of the garden and dig worms.'
'Now that's just where you're wrong, Mr Hoddy, if you'll allow me to say so. That's just where you're absolutely wrong. They want maggots, not worms.'
'In that case they get their own maggots.'
'They don't want to get their own maggots. Just imagine Mr Hoddy, it's Saturday afternoon and you're going out fishing and a nice clean tin of maggots arrives by post and all you've got to do is slip it in the fishing bag and away you go. You don't think fellers is going out digging for worms and hunting for maggots when they can have them delivered right to their very doorsteps like that just for a bob or two, do you?'
'And might I ask how you propose to run this maggot-factory of yours?' When he spoke the word maggot, it seemed as if he were spitting out a sour little pip from his mouth.
'Easiest thing in the world to run a maggotfactory.' Claud was gaining confidence now and warming to his subject. 'All you need is a couple of old oil drums and a few lumps of rotten meat or a sheep's head, and you put them in the oil drums and that's all you do. The flies do the rest.'
Had he been watching Mr Hoddy's face he would probably have stopped there.
'Of course, it's not quite as easy as it sounds. What you've got to do next is feed up your maggots with special diet. Bran and milk. And then when they get big and fat you put them in pint tins and post them off to your customers. Five shillings a pint they fetch. Five shillings a pint!' he cried, slapping the knee. 'You just imagine that, Mr Hoddy! And they say one bluebottle'!! lay twenty pints easy!'
He paused again, but merely to marshal his thoughts, for there was no stopping him now. 'And there's another thing, Mr Hoddy. A good maggot-factory don't just breed ordinary maggots, you know. Every fisherman's got his own tastes. Maggots are commonest, but also there's lug worms. Some fishermen won't have nothing but lug worms. And of course there's coloured maggots. Ordinary maggots are white, but you get them all sorts of different colours by feeding them special foods, see. Red ones and green ones and black ones and you can even get blue ones if you know what to feed them. The most difficult thing of all in a maggot-factory is a blue maggot, Mr Hoddy.'
Claud stopped to catch his breath. He was having a vision now—the same vision that accompanied all his dreams of wealth—of an immense factory building with tall chimneys and hundreds of happy workers streaming in through the wide wrought-iron gates and Claud himself sitting in his luxurious office directing operations with a calm and splendid assurance.
'There's people with brains studying these things this very minute,' he went on. 'So you got to jump in quick unless you want to get left out in the cold. That's the secret of big business, jumping in quick before all the others, Mr Hoddy.'
Glance, Ada , and the father sat absolutely still looking straight ahead. None of them moved or spoke. Only Claud rushed on.
'Just so long as you make sure your maggots is alive when you post 'em. They've got to be wiggling, see. Maggots is no good unless they're wiggling. And when we really get going, when we've built up a little capital, then we'll put up some glasshouses.'
Another pause, and Claud stroked his chin. 'Now I expect you're all wondering why a person should want glasshouses in a maggotfactory. Well—I'll tell you. It's for the flies in the winter, see. Most important to take care of your flies in the winter.'
'I think that's enough, thank you, Cubbage,' Mr Hoddy said suddenly.
Claud looked up and for the first time he saw the expression on the man's face. It stopped him cold.
'I don't want to hear any more about it,' Mr Hoddy said.
'All I'm trying to do, Mr Hoddy,' Claud cried, 'is give your little girl everything she can possibly desire. That's all I'm thinking of night and day, Mr Hoddy.'
'Then all I hope is you'll be able to do it without the help of maggots.'
'Dad!' Glance cried, alarmed. 'I simply won't have you talking to Claud like that.'
'I'll talk to him how I wish, thank you Miss.'
'I think it's time I was getting along,' Claud saidd. 'Good night.'
