The line of H.G. Wells’s that drew Nabokov’s praise for sheer pure literary

artistry was

“On account of the flies.”

I hereby offer a modest prize — signed paperback copy of either Prime

Obsession or Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream (you tell me, and give me a

mailing address) — to the first reader who can identify the (obscure,

non-sci-fi) Wells novel in which the line occurs. Google won’t help — I

already tried it.