"There is an obstacle here," he began, "that we can easily overcome; but we must all understand just what we are to do. In perhaps half an hour at the rate we are growing this enclosure will resemble a well twice as deep, approximately, as it is broad. We cannot climb up its sides, therefore we must wait until it is not more than six feet in depth in order to be able to get out. At that time its diameter will be scarcely three feet. There are nine of us here; you can realize there would not be room for us all.
"What we must do is very simple. Since there is not room for us all at once, we must get large from now on only one at a time."
"Quite so," said the Big Business Man in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone.
"All of us but one will stop growing now; one will go on and get out of the pit. He will immediately stop his growth so that he can wait for the others and help them out. Each of us will follow the same method of procedure."
The Chemist then went on to arrange the exact quantities of the drugs they were each to take at specified times, so that at the end they would all be nearly the same size again. When he had explained all this to Oteo and Eena in their native language, they were ready to proceed with the plan.
"Who's first?" asked the Very Young Man. "Let me go with Loto."
They selected the Chemist to go first, and all but him took a little of the other drug and checked their growth. The pit at this time was hardly more than fifteen feet across and about thirty feet deep.
The Chemist stood in the centre of the enclosure, while his friends crowded over against its walls to make room for his growing body. It was nearly half an hour before his head was above its top. He waited only a moment more, then he sprang upwards, clambered out of the pit and disappeared beyond the rim. In a few moments they saw his huge head and shoulders hanging out over the side wall; his hand and arm reached down towards them and they heard his great voice roaring.
"Come on—somebody else."
The Very Young Man went next, with Loto. Nothing unusual marked their growth, and without difficulty, helped by the Chemist's hands reaching down to them, they climbed out of the pit.