It was said so ungraciously that I took offence; and as his original “few minutes” had now apparently extended to “half an hour” I thought it best to leave him to himself. When I said good-night to him, he seemed to regard it as an extra interruption; so I was not sorry to go. I left him still delving into the masses of printed material around him.
And that was how Wotherspoon missed the greatest discovery that ever came his way. It was waiting for him across the table, for I doubt if he could have failed to draw the obvious conclusion had he actually taken the trouble to examine the phenomenon with his own eyes. But his interest was concentrated upon his writing; and his chance passed him by. After Johnston published his views, Wotherspoon made what I can only consider to be a dishonest attempt to secure priority on the ground that he was aware of the facts but had not had time to work out the subject fully before Johnston rushed into print; but he secured no support from any authoritative quarter; and even the newspapers had by that time seen the necessity of consulting experts, so that he was unable to place the numerous articles which he wrote to confute Johnston.
Three days later, Regent’s Park again figured in the columns of the newspapers.
The first mention of the matter which I saw was in an evening journal. I had been reading a short account of a locust plague in China which was reported to have destroyed crops upon a large scale and caused a panic emigration of the inhabitants of the devastated district, owing to the failure of supplies. Just below this article, my eye caught a paragraph headed:
Strange Blight in Regent’s Park.
It appeared that the vegetation in the Park had been attacked by some peculiar disease, the symptoms of which were evidently not very clear to the writer of the paragraph. According to him, the plants were withering away; but there seemed to be no fungus or growth on the leaves which would account for their decrepitude. Trees and flowers equally with the grass were attacked by the blight. While throwing out a hint that the prolonged drought might possibly account for the phenomenon, the reporter indicated that the thing was rather more local than might have been anticipated from this cause; for the worst effects of the blight were to be found in the vegetation of the strip between Gloucester Gate and the Outer Circle in one direction and between the Broad Walk and the Park edge in the other. Beyond this oblong, the damage done was not so readily recognisable.
That evening, as the fine weather still held, I walked through Regent’s Park to see for myself what truth there was in the newspaper talk. More people than usual were out; for in addition to the normal crowds of pedestrians, it was evident that others had come, like myself, to examine the blight. The Broad Walk was thronged; for the Londoner of those days was one of the most inquisitive creatures in existence.
It was evident that, considered from the “show” point of view, the state of affairs had been a disappointment to the people. I heard numerous comments as I walked among the crowd; and the tone was one of disparagement. The general feeling seemed to be that the thing was a mare’s nest or a newspaper hoax.
“Blight, they calls it?” said one stout old woman as I passed; “I’d like to blight the young feller what wrote all that in the papers about it, I would! Me putting on my best things and walking ever so far on a hot night to see nothing better than a lot of dried grass. I thought it would be fair seething with grasshoppers,” and she shook her head till the trimmings of her antique hat trembled with her vehemence. Evidently she had mixed up the Chinese locusts and the Regent’s Park affair in her mind.