A Mushroom Story.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 426, 16 June 1904, Page 7

A Mushroom Story.

Not one of the professors in the great North-eastern University knew exactly what to make of Professor Diggins, their colleague. They knew all about what he had done for the world through his study of botany and how he had dug and grubbed in the woods until he had found and given to human kind for food some four hundred varieties of plants that heretofore had been considered poisonous, and yet, acknowledging the indebtedness to Professor Diggins, the university looked at him askance. Professor Diggins, however, apparently didn't care a rap wh it the other profeasors thought of hici. He Knew well enough what he thought of them—that they were a lot of misguided men who were spending their tone studying the stars, the rocks, and the four-legged boasties while they ought to have been doing nothing but study the earth, and the plants whioh spring from it.

•There's only one science,' Professor Diggins used to say to his confreres whenever he condescended to talk with them •and that is the science which pertains to vegetation. You're all wasting your time and the time of your pupils with this soaring into space and chipping chunks out of rooks. Get next to the leaf, the flower, and the fruit if you would do something for mankind.' The trustees of the Northeastern University paid little attention to Professor Diggins* strictures on his fellow instructors. They inwardly voted him a crank and outwardly voted him an increase of salary when he discovered a root that was as edible as mashed potato and much cheaper. They did make an attempt once to bring about a more kindly feeling between the. ' root doctor",' as the students called Diggins, and the other faculty members, but they gave it up after they had happened to overhear a conversation between Professor Diggins and Professor Starr of the astronomical department. Diggins held Starr in coatempt. He considered it little short of villainous that a man should go gazing at things over his head to the ignoring of things under his feet. Inasmuch as Starr's study subjects were much farther away from earth than were those of other professors, just eo much the more did Professor Diggins put him down as verj much of a fool and something of a knave. 'The idea of that man Starr bothering about the canals on Mars, belts oh Jupiter, and rings about Saturn!' the professor would say to himself. 'No human being ever sustained life with anything that he got from the planets, or from the stars either, for that matter,' and then the professor grinned a bit grimly. % Professor Diggins, with an assistant named George Dobbins, who was a trained gardener, had been tramping the 'woods and hills for mushrooms and toadstools. Professor Diggins was writing a book, and in it he was telling men how for centuries they had been ignoring some of the most delectable tidbits in the way. of food that Nature had provided for its children. • We have one hundred and ninety-nine new kinds of mushrooms now, Dobbins, to put in my book,' said the professor to his gardener assistant one day. ' I'm afraid there isn't another edible kind is all this country, but I would like to. fiad one to make the list an even two hundred. 'There's that legimens tnofloa that I found the other day. You say its poisonous and say you know it, but I think possibly it's good to eat. I'm hot finished experimenting yet and I'll make the two hundredth .mushroom for my book out of it. I_ know you've never been wrohgf Dobbins, but you're wrong this time.'* The next day the newsboys were calling a newspaper extra on the streets of the university town. Professor Diggins bought one. In great headlines he saw it announced that Professor Starr had discovered beyond the peradventure of a doubt that there was a second big planet between Mercnry and the sun. The paper stated that Professor Starr's name would head the lißt of all the world's astronomers. Professor Diggins read, and ground his teeth. ' He'll have hia head higher in the air now than ever before,' he muttered. ' What are his planets against my plants P I suppose they'll say that I'm a grabber and h's a soarer.' j Just then ProfesßOr Starr came round I the comer of University Hall. He met ; Professor Diggins face to face. To the : star-gazer's utter amazement the botanist's face was all smiles, and his hand was held out in greeting. ' Glad to see you, Professor Starr, and gladder to congratulate you,' said the botanist. 'We haven't been—that is, I haven't—very friendly. Forgive jne and , dine with me to-night in my quarters. You will, won't you PProfessor Starr was the kindly sort, and while staggered at the botanist's geniality ; he said—■ "" „;. """.-^ ■•'—'•--' ! - '■' • Certainly I will; certainly, gladly.' That night Professor Starr Bat opposite Professor Diggins at a dinner-table in the botanist's bachelor home. -\ There were two savoury dishes before Professor Diggins. He helped Professor Starr from one and himself from, the . other. - :i •'"-">" ■ •One of my discoveries, Starr,' said.the host while his eyes shone with a -sort- of feverish brightness. ' Everybody likes mushrooms, I think, and you'll find those choice.' 'They're delicious, Diggins,' answered Starr, who had half finished his portion. • What do you call them P' «, 'Legimens tuofiora,' answered Diggins. At that instant the door Opened' and in came George Dobbins, the gardener. - He heard the words spoken by his patron, and he saw Professor Starr lifting the last morßel from the dish to his.lipa. .-.-# The gardener jumped at Professor Starr like a shot, grabbed him round the waist and bolted from the zoom with his burden, casting one backward look at Professor Diggins, whose, eyes were now. dancing wildly. Dobbins hurried his. charge to the laboratory.... A physician come in a trice and. in half an hour said that Professor Starr would s live, .' = --*t: Over in Professor Diggins'quarters a man was tearing up and down the room shrieking— I : ' He spoiled my experiment' The next day Professor Diggins of the Northeastern University was taken to the Insane Asylum The entry in the book of the institution was, 'Mind wrecked by mushrooms.'—E. B. C.