INDIRA AND OTHER STORIES
Odontokeros again interrupted to ask what manner of beast a Port Canning Company might be.
"I cannot honestly say", admitted the lecturer, "that I am well informed on that point. I have never been able to ascertain what its external aspect was, or to what genus of living creatures it belonged. But I have been informed that it was created by men, that its drink was the heart's blood of men, and that it waxed very fat on this nourishment. I ought to mention that the race of men is extraordinarily improvident. They are perpetually occupied in devising means for their own destruction. The weapons that they use are a proof of this fact. I have heard that they will collect by thousands in an open place and deliberately slay one another with these weapons. My own belief is that this Port Canning Company was a demoniac form created by men for their mutual destruction.
That, however, is irrelevant to the subject of
navigable than the Hooghly. The Company was unsuccessful, and the shareholders lost much money.
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