Professor Jonkins Cannibal Plant | Page 2

much rather have been eating some of the queer hybrid fruits the professor raised. He pleaded an engagement when he saw an opening in the talk, and went away.
It was some months after that before he saw the professor again. The botanist was busy in his conservatory in the meantime, and the gardener he hired to do rough work noticed that his master spent much time in that part of the glass house where the pitcher plant was growing.
For Professor Jonkin had become so much interested in his latest acquisition that he seemed to think of nothing else. His plan for increasing strawberries to the size of peaches was abandoned for a time, as was his pet scheme of raising apples without any core.
The gardener wondered what there was about the South American blossoms to require such close attention.
One day he thought he would find out, and he started to enter that part of the conservatory where the pitcher plant was growing. Professor Jonkin halted him before he had stepped inside and sternly bade him never to appear there again.
As the gardener, crestfallen, moved away after a glimpse into the forbidden region he muttered: "My, that plant has certainly grown! And I wonder what the professor was doing so close to it. Looked as if he was feeding the thing."
As the days went by the conduct of Professor Jonkin became more and more curious. He scarcely left the southern end of the conservatory, save at night, when he entered his house to sleep.
He was a bachelor, and had no family cares to trouble him, so he could spend all his time among his plants. But hitherto he had divided his attention among his many experiments in the floral kingdom.
Now he was always with his mysterious pitcher plant. He even had his meals sent into the green-house.
"Be you keepin' boarders?" asked the butcher boy of the gardener one day, passing on his return to the store, his empty basket on his arm.
"No. Why?"
"The professor is orderin' so much meat lately. I thought you had company."
"No, there's only us two. Mr. Adams used to come to dinner once in a while, but not lately."
"Then you an' the professor must have big appetites."
"What makes you think so?"
"The number of beefsteaks you eat."
"Number of beefsteaks? Why, my lad, the professor and I are both vegetarians."
"What's them?"
"We neither of us eat a bit of meat. We don't believe it's healthy."
"Then what becomes of the three big porterhouse steaks I deliver to the professor in the green-house every day?"
"Porterhouse steaks?" questioned the gardener, amazed. "Do you feed 'em to the dog?"
"We don't keep a dog."
But the butcher boy questioned no further, for he saw a chum and hastened off to join him.
"Three porterhouse steaks a day!" mused the gardener, shaking his head. "I do hope the professor has not ceased to be a vegetarian. Yet it looks mighty suspicious. And he's doing it on the sly, too, for there's been no meat cooked in the house, of that I'm sure."
And the gardener, sorely puzzled over the mystery, went off, shaking his head more solemnly than before.
He resolved to have a look in the place the professor guarded so carefully. He tried the door when he was sure his master was in another part of the conservatory, but it was locked, and no key the gardener had would unfasten it.
A month after the gardener had heard of the porterhouse steaks, Adams happened to drop in to see the professor again.
"He's in with the Sarracenia Nepenthis," said the gardener in answer to the visitor's inquiry. "But I doubt if he will let you enter."
"Why won't he?"
"Because he's become mighty close-mouthed of late over that pitcher plant."
"Oh, I guess he'll see me," remarked Adams confidently, and he knocked on the door that shut off the locked section of the green-house from the main portion.
"Who's there?" called the professor.
"Adams."
"Oh," in a more conciliatory tone. "I was just wishing you'd come along. I have something to show you."
Professor Jonkin opened the door, and the sight that met Adams' gaze startled him.
The only plant in that part of the conservatory was a single specimen of the Sarracenia Nepenthis. Yet it had attained such enormous proportions that at first Adams thought he must be dreaming.
"What do. you think of that for an achievement in science?" asked the professor proudly.
"Do you mean to say that is the small, fly-catching plant your friend sent you from Brazil?"
"The same."
"But?but?"
"But how it's grown, that's what you want to say, isn't it?"
"It is. How did you do it?"
"By dieting the blossoms."
"You mean??"
"I mean feeding them. Listen. I reasoned that if a small blossom of the plant would thrive on a few insects, by giving it larger meals I might get a bigger plant. So I made my plans.
"First