“Another invention?” this from Desmond.
“Yes.”
“There’s no smell,” said Mavis, as she delicately wrinkled her pretty nose.
“And no taste,” averred Alan.
“It reminds me of something,” said Desmond. “I’m sure I’ve tasted something like it before.”
“What is it, Uncle John? Do tell us,” pleaded Mavis.
Sir John laughed. “Water, my dear, just plain water. Desmond is quite right, he has tasted it before.”
“Water,” said Alan in bewilderment, “but surely frozen water has a greater bulk than when it is in a liquid form?”
“So it has, my boy. But I call this ‘concentrated essence of water.’ There is enough in that cupboard to last eighteen months. Of course we should never want such a quantity, but the experiments pleased and cheered an old man in his loneliness.”
He then opened another press and showed that it was packed with concentrated tea, concentrated essence of beef and chicken, concentrated essence of milk; it had everything in it that had been devised for reducing food bulk to the minimum with a maximum amount of caloric value.