The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth Read online

  CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

  THE GIANT CHILDREN.

  I.

  For a time at least the spreading circle of residual consequences aboutthe Experimental Farm must pass out of the focus of our narrative--howfor a long time a power of bigness, in fungus and toadstool, in grassand weed, radiated from that charred but not absolutely obliteratedcentre. Nor can we tell here at any length how these mournful spinsters,the two surviving hens, made a wonder of and a show, spent theirremaining years in eggless celebrity. The reader who is hungry forfuller details in these matters is referred to the newspapers of theperiod--to the voluminous, indiscriminate files of the modern RecordingAngel. Our business lies with Mr. Bensington at the focus of thedisturbance.

  He had come back to London to find himself a quite terribly famous man.In a night the whole world had changed with respect to him. Everybodyunderstood. Cousin Jane, it seemed, knew all about it; the people in thestreets knew all about it; the newspapers all and more. To meet CousinJane was terrible, of course, but when it was over not so terrible afterall. The good woman had limits even to her power over facts; it wasclear that she had communed with herself and accepted the Food assomething in the nature of things.

  She took the line of huffy dutifulness. She disapproved highly, it wasevident, but she did not prohibit. The flight of Bensington, as she musthave considered it, may have shaken her, and her worst was to treat himwith bitter persistence for a cold he had not caught and fatigue he hadlong since forgotten, and to buy him a new sort of hygienic all-woolcombination underwear that was apt to get involved and turned partiallyinside out and partially not, and as difficult to get into for anabsent-minded man, as--Society. And so for a space, and as far as thisconvenience left him leisure, he still continued to participate in thedevelopment of this new element in human history, the Food of the Gods.

  The public mind, following its own mysterious laws of selection, hadchosen him as the one and only responsible Inventor and Promoter of thisnew wonder; it would hear nothing of Redwood, and without a protest itallowed Cossar to follow his natural impulse into a terribly prolificobscurity. Before he was aware of the drift of these things, Mr.Bensington was, so to speak, stark and dissected upon the hoardings. Hisbaldness, his curious general pinkness, and his golden spectacles hadbecome a national possession. Resolute young men with largeexpensive-looking cameras and a general air of complete authorisationtook possession of the flat for brief but fruitful periods, let offflash lights in it that filled it for days with dense, intolerablevapour, and retired to fill the pages of the syndicated magazines withtheir admirable photographs of Mr. Bensington complete and at home inhis second-best jacket and his slashed shoes. Other resolute-manneredpersons of various ages and sexes dropped in and told him things aboutBoomfood--it was _Punch_ first called the stuff "Boomfood"--andafterwards reproduced what they had said as his own originalcontribution to the Interview. The thing became quite an obsession withBroadbeam, the Popular Humourist. He scented another confounded thing hecould not understand, and he fretted dreadfully in his efforts to "laughthe thing down." One saw him in clubs, a great clumsy presence with theevidences of his midnight oil burning manifest upon his largeunwholesome face, explaining to every one he could buttonhole: "TheseScientific chaps, you know, haven't a Sense of Humour, you know. That'swhat it is. This Science--kills it." His jests at Bensington becamemalignant libels....

  An enterprising press-cutting agency sent Bensington a long articleabout himself from a sixpenny weekly, entitled "A New Terror," andoffered to supply one hundred such disturbances for a guinea, and twoextremely charming young ladies, totally unknown to him, called, and, tothe speechless indignation of Cousin Jane, had tea with him andafterwards sent him their birthday books for his signature. He wasspeedily quite hardened to seeing his name associated with the mostincongruous ideas in the public press, and to discover in the reviewsarticles written about Boomfood and himself in a tone of the utmostintimacy by people he had never heard of. And whatever delusions he mayhave cherished in the days of his obscurity about the pleasantness ofFame were dispelled utterly and for ever.

  At first--except for Broadbeam--the tone of the public mind was quitefree from any touch of hostility. It did not seem to occur to the publicmind as anything but a mere playful supposition that any moreHerakleophorbia was going to escape again. And it did not seem to occurto the public mind that the growing little band of babies now being fedon the food would presently be growing more "up" than most of us evergrow. The sort of thing that pleased the public mind was caricatures ofeminent politicians after a course of Boom-feeding, uses of the idea onhoardings, and such edifying exhibitions as the dead wasps that hadescaped the fire and the remaining hens.

  Beyond that the public did not care to look, until very strenuousefforts were made to turn its eyes to the remoter consequences, and eventhen for a while its enthusiasm for action was partial. "There's alwayssomethin' New," said the public--a public so glutted with novelty thatit would hear of the earth being split as one splits an apple withoutsurprise, and, "I wonder what they'll do next."

  But there were one or two people outside the public, as it were, who didalready take that further glance, and some it seems were frightened bywhat they saw there. There was young Caterham, for example, cousin ofthe Earl of Pewterstone, and one of the most promising of Englishpoliticians, who, taking the risk of being thought a faddist, wrote along article in the _Nineteenth Century and After_ to suggest its totalsuppression. And--in certain of his moods, there was Bensington.

  "They don't seem to realise--" he said to Cossar.

  "No, they don't."

  "And do we? Sometimes, when I think of what it means--This poor child ofRedwood's--And, of course, your three... Forty feet high, perhaps!After all, _ought_ we to go on with it?"

  "Go on with it!" cried Cossar, convulsed with inelegant astonishment andpitching his note higher than ever. "Of _course_ you'll go on with it!What d'you think you were made for? Just to loaf about betweenmeal-times?

  "Serious consequences," he screamed, "of course! Enormous. Obviously.Ob-viously. Why, man, it's the only chance you'll ever get of a seriousconsequence! And you want to shirk it!" For a moment his indignation wasspeechless, "It's downright Wicked!" he said at last, and repeatedexplosively, "Wicked!"

  But Bensington worked in his laboratory now with more emotion than zest.He couldn't, tell whether he wanted serious consequences to his life ornot; he was a man of quiet tastes. It was a marvellous discovery, ofcourse, quite marvellous--but--He had already become the proprietor ofseveral acres of scorched, discredited property near Hickleybrow, at aprice of nearly ?90 an acre, and at times he was disposed to think thisas serious a consequence of speculative chemistry as any unambitiousman, could wish. Of course he was Famous--terribly Famous. More thansatisfying, altogether more than satisfying, was the Fame he hadattained.

  But the habit of Research was strong in him....

  And at moments, rare moments in the laboratory chiefly, he would findsomething else than habit and Cossar's arguments to urge him to hiswork. This little spectacled man, poised perhaps with his slashed shoeswrapped about the legs of his high stool and his hand upon the tweezerof his balance weights, would have again a flash of that adolescentvision, would have a momentary perception of the eternal unfolding ofthe seed that had been sown in his brain, would see as it were in thesky, behind the grotesque shapes and accidents of the present, thecoming world of giants and all the mighty things the future has instore--vague and splendid, like some glittering palace seen suddenly inthe passing of a sunbeam far away.... And presently it would be with himas though that distant splendour had never shone upon his brain, and hewould perceive nothing ahead but sinister shadows, vast declivities anddarknesses, inhospitable immensities, cold, wild, and terrible things.

  II.

  Amidst the complex and confused happenings, the impacts from the greatouter world that constituted Mr. Bensington's fame, a shining and activefigure presently became conspicuo
us--became almost, as it were, a leaderand marshal of these externalities in Mr. Bensington's eyes. This wasDr. Winkles, that convincing young practitioner, who has alreadyappeared in this story as the means whereby Redwood was able to conveythe Food to his son. Even before the great outbreak, it was evident thatthe mysterious powders Redwood had given him had awakened thisgentleman's interest immensely, and so soon as the first wasps came hewas putting two and two together.

  He was the sort of doctor that is in manners, in morals, in methods andappearance, most succinctly and finally expressed by the word "rising."He was large and fair, with a hard, alert, superficial,aluminium-coloured eye, and hair like chalk mud, even-featured andmuscular about the clean-shaven mouth, erect in figure and energetic inmovement, quick and spinning on the heel, and he wore long frock coats,black silk ties and plain gold studs and chains and his silk hats had aspecial shape and brim that made him look wiser and better than anybody.He looked as young or old as anybody grown up. And after that firstwonderful outbreak he took to Bensington and Redwood and the Food of theGods with such a convincing air of proprietorship, that at times, inspite of the testimony of the Press to the contrary, Bensington wasdisposed to regard him as the original inventor of the whole affair.

  "These accidents," said Winkles, when Bensington hinted at the dangersof further escapes, "are nothing. Nothing. The discovery is everything.Properly developed, suitably handled, sanely controlled, we have--wehave something very portentous indeed in this food of ours.... We mustkeep our eye on it ... We mustn't let it out of control again, and--wemustn't let it rest."

  He certainly did not mean to do that. He was at Bensington's now almostevery day. Bensington, glancing from the window, would see the faultlessequipage come spanking up Sloane Street and after an incredibly briefinterval Winkles would enter the room with a light, strong motion, andpervade it, and protrude some newspaper and supply information and makeremarks.

  "Well," he would say, rubbing his hands, "how are we getting on?" and sopass to the current discussion about it.

  "Do you see," he would say, for example, "that Caterham has been talkingabout our stuff at the Church Association?"

  "Dear me!" said Bensington, "that's a cousin of the Prime Minister,isn't it?"

  "Yes," said Winkles, "a very able young man--very able. Quitewrong-headed; you know, violently reactionary--but thoroughly able. Andhe's evidently disposed to make capital out of this stuff of ours. Takesa very emphatic line. Talks of our proposal to use it in the elementaryschools---"

  "Our proposal to use it in the elementary schools!"

  "_I_ said something about that the other day--quite in passing--littleaffair at a Polytechnic. Trying to make it clear the stuff was reallyhighly beneficial. Not in the slightest degree dangerous, in spite ofthose first little accidents. Which cannot possibly occur again.... Youknow it _would_ be rather good stuff--But he's taken it up."

  "What did you say?"

  "Mere obvious nothings. But as you see---! Takes it up with perfectgravity. Treats the thing as an attack. Says there is already asufficient waste of public money in elementary schools without this.Tells the old stories about piano lessons again--_you_ know. No one; hesays, wishes to prevent the children of the lower classes obtaining aneducation suited to their condition, but to give them a food of thissort will be to destroy their sense of proportion utterly. Expands thetopic. What Good will it do, he asks, to make poor people six-and-thirtyfeet high? He really believes, you know, that they _will_ be thirty-sixfeet high."

  "So they would _be_," said Bensington, "if you gave them our food at allregularly. But nobody said anything---"

  "_I_ said something."

  "But, my dear Winkles--!"

  "They'll be Bigger, of course," interrupted Winkles, with an air ofknowing all about it, and discouraging the crude ideas of Bensington."Bigger indisputably. But listen to what he says! Will it make themhappier? That's his point. Curious, isn't it? Will it make them better?Will they be more respectful to properly constituted authority? Is itfair to the children themselves?? Curious how anxious his sort are forjustice--so far as any future arrangements go. Even nowadays, he says,the cost, of feeding and clothing children is more than many of theirparents can contrive, and if this sort of thing is to be permitted--!Eh?

  "You see he makes my mere passing suggestion into a positive proposal.And then he calculates how much a pair of breeches for a growing lad oftwenty feet high or so will cost. Just as though he really believed--Tenpounds, he reckons, for the merest decency. Curious this Caterham! Soconcrete! The honest, and struggling ratepayer will have to contributeto that, he says. He says we have to consider the Rights of the Parent.It's all here. Two columns. Every Parent has a right to have, hischildren brought up in his own Size....

  "Then comes the question of school accommodation, cost of enlarged desksand forms for our already too greatly burthened National Schools. And toget what?--a proletariat of hungry giants. Winds up with a very seriouspassage, says even if this wild suggestion--mere passing fancy of mine,you know, and misinterpreted at that--this wild suggestion about theschools comes to nothing, that doesn't end the matter. This is a strangefood, so strange as to seem to him almost wicked. It has been scatteredrecklessly--so he says--and it may be scattered again. Once you've takenit, it's poison unless you go on with it. 'So it is,' said Bensington.And in short he proposes the formation of a National Society for thePreservation of the Proper Proportions of Things. Odd? Eh? People arehanging on to the idea like anything."

  "But what do they propose to do?"

  Winkles shrugged his shoulders and threw out his hands. "Form aSociety," he said, "and fuss. They want to make it illegal tomanufacture this Herakleophorbia--or at any rate to circulate theknowledge of it. I've written about a bit to show that Caterham's ideaof the stuff is very much exaggerated--very much exaggerated indeed, butthat doesn't seem to check it. Curious how people are turning againstit. And the National Temperance Association, by-the-bye, has founded abranch for Temperance in Growth."

  "Mm," said Bensington and stroked his nose.

  "After all that has happened there's bound to be this uproar. On theface of it the thing's--_startling_."

  Winkles walked about the room for a time, hesitated, and departed.

  It became evident there was something at the back of his mind, someaspect of crucial importance to him, that he waited to display. One day,when Redwood and Bensington were at the flat together he gave them aglimpse of this something in reserve.

  "How's it all going?" he said; rubbing his hands together.

  "We're getting together a sort of report."

  "For the Royal Society?"

  "Yes."

  "Hm," said. Winkles, very profoundly, and walked to the hearth-rug."Hm. But--Here's the point. _Ought_ you?"

  "Ought we--what?"

  "Ought you to publish?"

  "We're not in the Middle Ages," said Redwood.

  "I know."

  "As Cossar says, swapping wisdom--that's the true scientific method."

  "In most cases, certainly. But--This is exceptional."

  "We shall put the whole thing before the Royal Society in the properway," said Redwood.

  Winkles returned to that on a later occasion.

  "It's in many ways an Exceptional discovery."

  "That doesn't matter," said Redwood.

  "It's the sort of knowledge that could easily be subject to graveabuse--grave dangers, as Caterham puts it."

  Redwood said nothing.

  "Even carelessness, you know--"

  "If we were to form a committee of trustworthy people to control themanufacture of Boomfood--Herakleophorbia, I _should_ say--we might--"

  He paused, and Redwood, with a certain private discomfort, pretendedthat he did not see any sort of interrogation....

  Outside the apartments of Redwood and Bensington, Winkle, in spite ofthe incompleteness of his instructions, became a leading authority uponBoomfood. He wrote letters defending its use; he made
notes and articlesexplaining its possibilities; he jumped up irrelevantly at the meetingsof the scientific and medical associations to talk about it; heidentified himself with it. He published a pamphlet called "The Truthabout Boomfood," in which he minimised the whole of the Hickleybrowaffair almost to nothing. He said that it was absurd to say Boomfoodwould make people thirty-seven feet high. That was "obviouslyexaggerated." It would make them Bigger, of course, but that was all....

  Within that intimate circle of two it was chiefly evident that Winkleswas extremely anxious to help in the making of Herakleophorbia, help incorrecting any proofs there might be of any paper there might be inpreparation upon the subject--do anything indeed that might lead up tohis participation in the details of the making of Herakleophorbia. Hewas continually telling them both that he felt it was a Big Thing, thatit had big possibilities. If only they were--"safeguarded in some way."And at last one day he asked outright to be told just how it was made.

  "I've been thinking over what you said," said Redwood.

  "Well?" said Winkles brightly.

  "It's the sort of knowledge that could easily be subject to graveabuse," said Redwood.

  "But I don't see how that applies," said Winkles.

  "It does," said Redwood.

  Winkles thought it over for a day or so. Then he came to Redwood andsaid that he doubted if he ought to give powders about which he knewnothing to Redwood's little boy; it seemed to him it was uncommonly liketaking responsibility in the dark. That made Redwood thoughtful.

  "You've seen that the Society for the Total Suppression of Boomfoodclaims to have several thousand members," said Winkles, changing thesubject. "They've drafted a Bill," said Winkles. "They've got youngCaterham to take it up--readily enough. They're in earnest. They'reforming local committees to influence candidates. They want to make itpenal to prepare and store Herakleophorbia without special license, andfelony--matter of imprisonment without option--to administerBoomfood--that's what they call it, you know--to any person underone-and-twenty. But there's collateral societies, you know. All sorts ofpeople. The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Statures is going tohave Mr. Frederic Harrison on the council, they say. You know he'swritten an essay about it; says it is vulgar, and entirely inharmoniouswith that Revelation of Humanity that is found in the teachings ofComte. It is the sort of thing the Eighteenth Century _couldn't_ haveproduced even in its worst moments. The idea of the Food never enteredthe head of Comte--which shows how wicked it really is. No one, he says,who really understood Comte...."

  "But you don't mean to say--" said Redwood, alarmed out of his disdainfor Winkles.

  "They'll not do all that," said Winkles. "But public opinion is publicopinion, and votes are votes. Everybody can see you are up to adisturbing thing. And the human instinct is all against disturbance, youknow. Nobody seems to believe Caterham's idea of people thirty-sevenfeet high, who won't be able to get inside a church, or a meeting-house,or any social or human institution. But for all that they're not so easyin their minds about it. They see there's something--something more thana common discovery--"

  "There is," said Redwood, "in every discovery."

  "Anyhow, they're getting--restive. Caterham keeps harping on what mayhappen if it gets loose again. I say over and over again, it won't, andit can't. But--there it is!"

  And he bounced about the room for a little while as if he meant toreopen the topic of the secret, and then thought better of it and went.

  The two scientific men looked at one another. For a space only theireyes spoke.

  "If the worst comes to the worst," said Redwood at last, in astrenuously calm voice, "I shall give the Food to my little Teddy withmy own hands."

  III.

  It was only a few days after this that Redwood opened his paper to findthat the Prime Minister had promised a Royal Commission on Boomfood.This sent him, newspaper in hand, round to Bensington's flat.

  "Winkles, I believe, is making mischief for the stuff. He plays into thehands of Caterham. He keeps on talking about it, and what it is going todo, and alarming people. If he goes on, I really believe he'll hamperour inquiries. Even as it is--with this trouble about my little boy--"

  Bensington wished Winkles wouldn't.

  "Do you notice how he has dropped into the way of calling it Boomfood?"

  "I don't like that name," said Bensington, with a glance over hisglasses.

  "It is just so exactly what it is--to Winkles."

  "Why does he keep on about it? It isn't his!"

  "It's something called Booming," said Redwood. "_I_ don't understand. Ifit isn't his, everybody is getting to think it is. Not that _that_matters."

  "In the event of this ignorant, this ridiculous agitationbecoming--Serious," began Bensington.

  "My little boy can't get on without the stuff," said Redwood. "I don'tsee how I can help myself now. If the worst comes to the worst--"

  A slight bouncing noise proclaimed the presence of Winkles. He becamevisible in the middle of the room rubbing his hands together.

  "I wish you'd knock," said Bensington, looking vicious over the goldrims.

  Winkles was apologetic. Then he turned to Redwood. "I'm glad to find youhere," he began; "the fact is--"

  "Have you seen about this Royal Commission?" interrupted Redwood.

  "Yes," said Winkles, thrown out. "Yes."

  "What do you think of it?"

  "Excellent thing," said Winkles. "Bound to stop most of this clamour.Ventilate the whole affair. Shut up Caterham. But that's not what I cameround for, Redwood. The fact is--"

  "I don't like this Royal Commission," said Bensington.

  "I can assure you it will be all right. I may say--I don't think it's abreach of confidence--that very possibly _I_ may have a place on theCommission--"

  "Oom," said Redwood, looking into the fire.

  "I can put the whole thing right. I can make it perfectly clear, first,that the stuff is controllable, and, secondly, that nothing short of amiracle is needed before anything like that catastrophe at Hickleybrowcan possibly happen again. That is just what is wanted, an authoritativeassurance. Of course, I could speak with more confidence if I knew--Butthat's quite by the way. And just at present there's something else,another little matter, upon which I'm wanting to consult you. Ahem. Thefact is--Well--I happen to be in a slight difficulty, and you can helpme out."

  Redwood raised his eyebrows, and was secretly glad.

  "The matter is--highly confidential."

  "Go on," said Redwood. "Don't worry about that."

  "I have recently been entrusted with a child--the child of--of anExalted Personage."

  Winkles coughed.

  "You're getting on," said Redwood.

  "I must confess it's largely your powders--and the reputation of mysuccess with your little boy--There is, I cannot disguise, a strongfeeling against its use. And yet I find that among the moreintelligent--One must go quietly in these things, you know--little bylittle. Still, in the case of Her Serene High--I mean this new littlepatient of mine. As a matter of fact--the suggestion came from theparent. Or I should never--"

  He struck Redwood as being embarrassed.

  "I thought you had a doubt of the advisability of using these powders,"said Redwood.

  "Merely a passing doubt."

  "You don't propose to discontinue--"

  "In the case of your little boy? Certainly not!"

  "So far as I can see, it would be murder."

  "I wouldn't do it for the world."

  "You shall have the powders," said Redwood.

  "I suppose you couldn't--"

  "No fear," said Redwood. "There isn't a recipe. It's no good, Winkles,if you'll pardon my frankness. I'll make you the powders myself."

  "Just as well, perhaps," said Winkles, after a momentary hard stare atRedwood--"just as well." And then: "I can assure you I really don't mindin the least."

  IV.

  When Winkles had gone Bensington came and stood on the hearth-rug andloo
ked down at Redwood.

  "Her Serene Highness!" he remarked.

  "Her Serene Highness!" said Redwood.

  "It's the Princess of Weser Dreiburg!"

  "No further than a third cousin."

  "Redwood," said Bensington; "it's a curious thing to say, I know,but--do you think Winkles understands?"

  "What?"

  "Just what it is we have made.

  "Does he really understand," said Bensington, dropping his voice andkeeping his eye doorward, "that in the Family--the Family of his newpatient--"

  "Go on," said Redwood.

  "Who have always been if anything a little _under_--_under_--"

  "The Average?"

  "Yes. And so _very_ tactfully undistinguished in _any_ way, he is goingto produce a royal personage--an outsize royal personage--of _that_size. You know, Redwood, I'm not sure whether there is not somethingalmost--_treasonable_ ..."

  He transferred his eyes from the door to Redwood.

  Redwood flung a momentary gesture--index finger erect--at the fire. "ByJove!" he said, "he _doesn't_ know!"

  "That man," said Redwood, "doesn't know anything. That was his mostexasperating quality as a student. Nothing. He passed all hisexaminations, he had all his facts--and he had just as muchknowledge--as a rotating bookshelf containing the _Times Encyclopedia_.And he doesn't know anything _now_. He's Winkles, and incapable ofreally assimilating anything not immediately and directly related to hissuperficial self. He is utterly void of imagination and, as aconsequence, incapable of knowledge. No one could possibly pass so manyexaminations and be so well dressed, so well done, and so successful asa doctor without that precise incapacity. That's it. And in spite of allhe's seen and heard and been told, there he is--he has no idea whateverof what he has set going. He has got a Boom on, he's working it well onBoomfood, and some one has let him in to this new Royal Baby--and that'sBoomier than ever! And the fact that Weser Dreiburg will presently haveto face the gigantic problem of a thirty-odd-foot Princess not onlyhasn't entered his head, but couldn't--it couldn't!"

  "There'll be a fearful row," said Bensington.

  "In a year or so."

  "So soon as they really see she is going on growing."

  "Unless after their fashion--they hush it up."

  "It's a lot to hush up."

  "Rather!"

  "I wonder what they'll do?"

  "They never do anything--Royal tact."

  "They're bound to do something."

  "Perhaps _she_ will."

  "O Lord! Yes."

  "They'll suppress her. Such things have been known."

  Redwood burst into desperate laughter. "The redundant royalty--thebouncing babe in the Iron Mask!" he said. "They'll have to put her inthe tallest tower of the old Weser Dreiburg castle and make holes in theceilings as she grows from floor to floor! Well, I'm in the very samepickle. And Cossar and his three boys. And--Well, well."

  "There'll be a fearful row," Bensington repeated, not joining in thelaughter. "A _fearful_ row."

  "I suppose," he argued, "you've really thought it out thoroughly,Redwood. You're quite sure it wouldn't be wiser to warn Winkles, weanyour little boy gradually, and--and rely upon the Theoretical Triumph?"

  "I wish to goodness you'd spend half an hour in my nursery when theFood's a little late," said Redwood, with a note of exasperation in hisvoice; "then you wouldn't talk like that, Bensington. Besides--Fancywarning Winkles... No! The tide of this thing has caught us unawares,and whether we're frightened or whether we're not--_we've got to swim!_"

  "I suppose we have," said Bensington, staring at his toes. "Yes. We'vegot to swim. And your boy will have to swim, and Cossar's boys--he'sgiven it to all three of them. Nothing partial about Cossar--all ornothing! And Her Serene Highness. And everything. We are going on makingthe Food. Cossar also. We're only just in the dawn of the beginning,Redwood. It's evident all sorts of things are to follow. Monstrous greatthings. But I can't imagine them, Redwood. Except--"

  He scanned his finger nails. He looked up at Redwood with eyes blandthrough his glasses.

  "I've half a mind," he adventured, "that Caterham is right. At times.It's going to destroy the Proportions of Things. It's going todislocate--What isn't it going to dislocate?"

  "Whatever it dislocates," said Redwood, "my little boy must have theFood."

  They heard some one falling rapidly upstairs. Then Cossar put his headinto the fiat. "Hullo!" he said at their expressions, and entering,"Well?"

  They told him about the Princess.

  "_Difficult question!_" he remarked. "Not a bit of it. _She'll_ grow.Your boy'll grow. All the others you give it to 'll grow. Everything.Like anything. What's difficult about that? That's all right. A childcould tell you that. Where's the bother?"

  They tried to make it clear to him.

  "_Not go on with it!_" he shrieked. "But--! You can't help yourselvesnow. It's what you're for. It's what Winkles is for. It's all right.Often wondered what Winkles was for. _Now_ it's obvious. What's thetrouble?

  "_Disturbance_? Obviously. _Upset things_? Upset everything.Finally--upset every human concern. Plain as a pikestaff. They're goingto try and stop it, but they're too late. It's their way to be too late.You go on and start as much of it as you can. Thank God He has a use foryou!"

  "But the conflict!" said Bensington, "the stress! I don't know if youhave imagined--"

  "You ought to have been some sort of little vegetable, Bensington," saidCossar--"that's what you ought to have been. Something growing over arockery. Here you are, fearfully and wonderfully made, and all you thinkyou're made for is just to sit about and take your vittles. D'you thinkthis world was made for old women to mop about in? Well, anyhow, youcan't help yourselves now--you've _got_ to go on."

  "I suppose we must," said Redwood. "Slowly--"

  "No!" said Cossar, in a huge shout. "No! Make as much as you can and assoon as you can. Spread it about!"

  He was inspired to a stroke of wit. He parodied one of Redwood's curveswith a vast upward sweep of his arm.

  "Redwood!" he said, to point the allusion, "make it SO!"

  V.

  There is, it seems, an upward limit to the pride of maternity, and thisin the case of Mrs. Redwood was reached when her offspring completed hissixth month of terrestrial existence, broke down his high-classbassinet-perambulator, and was brought home, bawling, in the milk-truck.Young Redwood at that time weighed fifty-nine and a half pounds,measured forty-eight inches in height, and gripped about sixty pounds.He was carried upstairs to the nursery by the cook and housemaid. Afterthat, discovery was only a question of days. One afternoon Redwood camehome from his laboratory to find his unfortunate wife deep in thefascinating pages of _The Mighty Atom_, and at the sight of him she putthe book aside and ran violently forward and burst into tears on hisshoulder.

  "Tell me what you have _done_ to him," she wailed. "Tell me what youhave done." Redwood took her hand and led her to the sofa, while hetried to think of a satisfactory line of defence.

  "It's all right, my dear," he said; "it's all right. You're only alittle overwrought. It's that cheap perambulator. I've arranged for abath-chair man to come round with something stouter to-morrow--"

  Mrs. Redwood looked at him tearfully over the top of her handkerchief.

  "A baby in a bath-chair?" she sobbed.

  "Well, why not?"

  "It's like a cripple."

  "It's like a young giant, my dear, and you've no cause to be ashamed ofhim."

  "You've done something to him, Dandy," she said. "I can see it in yourface."

  "Well, it hasn't stopped his growth, anyhow," said Redwood heartlessly.

  "I _knew_," said Mrs. Redwood, and clenched her pocket-handkerchief ballfashion in one hand. She looked at him with a sudden change to severity."What have you done to our child, Dandy?"

  "What's wrong with him?"

  "He's so big. He's a monster."

  "Nonsense. He's as straight and clean a baby as ever a woman had. What'swr
ong with him?"

  "Look at his size."

  "That's all right. Look at the puny little brutes about us! He's thefinest baby--"

  "He's _too_ fine," said Mrs. Redwood.

  "It won't go on," said Redwood reassuringly; "it's just a start he'staken."

  But he knew perfectly well it would go on. And it did. By the time thisbaby was twelve months old he tottered just one inch under five feethigh and scaled eight stone three; he was as big in fact as a St.Peter's _in Vaticano_ cherub, and his affectionate clutch at the hairand features of visitors became the talk of West Kensington. They had aninvalid's chair to carry him up and down to his nursery, and his specialnurse, a muscular young person just out of training, used to take himfor his airings in a Panhard 8 h.p. hill-climbing perambulator speciallymade to meet his requirement. It was lucky in every way that Redwood hadhis expert witness connection in addition to his professorship.

  When one got over the shock of little Redwood's enormous size, he was, Iam told by people who used to see him almost daily teufteufing slowlyabout Hyde Park, a singularly bright and pretty baby. He rarely cried orneeded a comforter. Commonly he clutched a big rattle, and sometimes hewent along hailing the bus-drivers and policemen along the road outsidethe railings as "Dadda!" and "Babba!" in a sociable, democratic way.

  "There goes that there great Boomfood baby," the bus-driver used to say.

  "Looks 'ealthy," the forward passenger would remark.

  "Bottle fed," the bus-driver would explain. "They say it 'olds a gallonand 'ad to be specially made for 'im."

  "Very 'ealthy child any'ow," the forward passenger would conclude.

  When Mrs. Redwood realized that his growth was indeed going onindefinitely and logically--and this she really did for the first timewhen the motor-perambulator arrived--she gave way to a passion of grief.She declared she never wished to enter her nursery again, wished she wasdead, wished the child was dead, wished everybody was dead, wished shehad never married Redwood, wished no one ever married anybody, Ajaxed alittle, and retired to her own room, where she lived almost exclusivelyon chicken broth for three days. When Redwood came to remonstrate withher, she banged pillows about and wept and tangled her hair.

  "_He's_ all right," said Redwood. "He's all the better for being big.You wouldn't like him smaller than other people's children."

  "I want him to be _like_ other children, neither smaller nor bigger. Iwanted him to be a nice little boy, just as Georgina Phyllis is a nicelittle girl, and I wanted to bring him up nicely in a nice way, and herehe is"--and the unfortunate woman's voice broke--"wearing number fourgrown-up shoes and being wheeled about by--booboo!--Petroleum!

  "I can never love him," she wailed, "never! He's too much for me! I cannever be a mother to him, such as I meant to be!"

  But at last, they contrived to get her into the nursery, and there wasEdward Monson Redwood ("Pantagruel" was only a later nickname) swingingin a specially strengthened rocking-chair and smiling and talking "goo"and "wow." And the heart of Mrs. Redwood warmed again to her child, andshe went and held him in her arms and wept.

  "They've done something to you," she sobbed, "and you'll grow and grow,dear; but whatever I can do to bring you up nice I'll do for you,whatever your father may say."

  And Redwood, who had helped to bring her to the door, went down thepassage much relieved. (Eh! but it's a base job this being a man--withwomen as they are!)

  VI.

  Before the year was out there were, in addition to Redwood's pioneervehicle, quite a number of motor-perambulators to be seen in the west ofLondon. I am told there were as many as eleven; but the most carefulinquiries yield trustworthy evidence of only six within the Metropolitanarea at that time. It would seem the stuff acted differently upondifferent types of constitution. At first Herakleophorbia was notadapted to injection, and there can be no doubt that quite aconsiderable proportion of human beings are incapable of absorbing thissubstance in the normal course of digestion. It was given, for example,to Winkles' youngest boy; but he seems to have been as incapable ofgrowth as, if Redwood was right, his father was incapable of knowledge.Others again, according to the Society for the Total Suppression ofBoomfood, became in some inexplicable way corrupted by it, and perishedat the onset of infantile disorders. The Cossar boys took to it withamazing avidity.

  Of course a thing of this kind never comes with absolute simplicity ofapplication into the life of man; growth in particular is a complexthing, and all generalisations must needs be a little inaccurate. Butthe general law of the Food would seem to be this, that when it could betaken into the system in any way it stimulated it in very nearly thesame degree in all cases. It increased the amount of growth from six toseven times, and it did not go beyond that, whatever amount of the Foodin excess was taken. Excess of Herakleophorbia indeed beyond thenecessary minimum led, it was found, to morbid disturbances ofnutrition, to cancer and tumours, ossifications, and the like. And oncegrowth upon the large scale had begun, it was soon evident that it couldonly continue upon that scale, and that the continuous administration ofHerakleophorbia in small but sufficient doses was imperative.

  If it was discontinued while growth was still going on, there was firsta vague restlessness and distress, then a period of voracity--as in thecase of the young rats at Hankey--and then the growing creature had asort of exaggerated anaemia and sickened and died. Plants suffered in asimilar way. This, however, applied only to the growth period. So soonas adolescence was attained--in plants this was represented by theformation of the first flower-buds--the need and appetite forHerakleophorbia diminished, and so soon as the plant or animal was fullyadult, it became altogether independent of any further supply of thefood. It was, as it were, completely established on the new scale. Itwas so completely established on the new scale that, as the thistlesabout Hickleybrow and the grass of the down side already demonstrated,its seed produced giant offspring after its kind.

  And presently little Redwood, pioneer of the new race, first child ofall who ate the food, was crawling about his nursery, smashingfurniture, biting like a horse, pinching like a vice, and bawlinggigantic baby talk at his "Nanny" and "Mammy" and the rather scared andawe-stricken "Daddy," who had set this mischief going.

  The child was born with good intentions. "Padda be good, be good," heused to say as the breakables flew before him. "Padda" was hisrendering of Pantagruel, the nickname Redwood imposed on him. AndCossar, disregarding certain Ancient Lights that presently led totrouble, did, after a conflict with the local building regulations, getbuilding on a vacant piece of ground adjacent to Redwood's home, acomfortable well-lit playroom, schoolroom, and nursery for their fourboys--sixty feet square about this room was, and forty feet high.

  Redwood fell in love with that great nursery as he and Cossar built it,and his interest in curves faded, as he had never dreamt it could fade,before the pressing needs of his son. "There is much," he said, "infitting a nursery. Much.

  "The walls, the things in it, they will all speak to this new mind ofours, a little more, a little less eloquently, and teach it, or fail toteach it a thousand things."

  "Obviously," said Cossar, reaching hastily for his hat.

  They worked together harmoniously, but Redwood supplied most of theeducational theory required ...

  They had the walls and woodwork painted with a cheerful vigour; for themost part a slightly warmed white prevailed, but there were bands ofbright clean colour to enforce the simple lines of construction. "Cleancolours we _must_ have," said Redwood, and in one place had a neathorizontal band of squares, in which crimson and purple, orange andlemon, blues and greens, in many hues and many shades, did themselveshonour. These squares the giant children should arrange and rearrange totheir pleasure. "Decorations must follow," said Redwood; "let them firstget the range of all the tints, and then this may go away. There is noreason why one should bias them in favour of any particular colour ordesign."

  Then, "The place must be full of interest," said Redwood. "Interest is
food for a child, and blankness torture and starvation. He must havepictures galore." There were no pictures hung about the room for anypermanent service, however, but blank frames were provided into whichnew pictures would come and pass thence into a portfolio so soon astheir fresh interest had passed. There was one window that looked downthe length of a street, and in addition, for an added interest, Redwoodhad contrived above the roof of the nursery a camera obscura thatwatched the Kensington High Street and not a little of the Gardens.

  In one corner that most worthy implement, an Abacus, four feet square, aspecially strengthened piece of ironmongery with rounded corners,awaited the young giants' incipient computations. There were few woollylambs and such-like idols, but instead Cossar, without explanation, hadbrought one day in three four-wheelers a great number of toys (all justtoo big for the coming children to swallow) that could be piled up,arranged in rows, rolled about, bitten, made to flap and rattle, smackedtogether, felt over, pulled out, opened, closed, and mauled andexperimented with to an interminable extent. There were many bricks ofwood in diverse colours, oblong and cuboid, bricks of polished china,bricks of transparent glass and bricks of india-rubber; there were slabsand slates; there were cones, truncated cones, and cylinders; there wereoblate and prolate spheroids, balls of varied substances, solid andhollow, many boxes of diverse size and shape, with hinged lids and screwlids and fitting lids, and one or two to catch and lock; there werebands of elastic and leather, and a number of rough and sturdy littleobjects of a size together that could stand up steadily and suggest theshape of a man. "Give 'em these," said Cossar. "One at a time."

  These things Redwood arranged in a locker in one corner. Along one sideof the room, at a convenient height for a six-or eight-foot child, therewas a blackboard, on which the youngsters might flourish in white andcoloured chalk, and near by a sort of drawing block, from which sheetafter sheet might be torn, and on which they could draw in charcoal, anda little desk there was, furnished with great carpenter's pencils ofvarying hardness and a copious supply of paper, on which the boys mightfirst scribble and then draw more neatly. And moreover Redwood gaveorders, so far ahead did his imagination go, for specially large tubesof liquid paint and boxes of pastels against the time when they shouldbe needed. He laid in a cask or so of plasticine and modelling clay. "Atfirst he and his tutor shall model together," he said, "and when he ismore skilful he shall copy casts and perhaps animals. And that remindsme, I must also have made for him a box of tools!

  "Then books. I shall have to look out a lot of books to put in his way,and they'll have to be big type. Now what sort of books will he need?There is his imagination to be fed. That, after all, is the crown ofevery education. The crown--as sound habits of mind and conduct are thethrone. No imagination at all is brutality; a base imagination is lustand cowardice; but a noble imagination is God walking the earth again.He must dream too of a dainty fairy-land and of all the quaint littlethings of life, in due time. But he must feed chiefly on the splendidreal; he shall have stories of travel through all the world, travels andadventures and how the world was won; he shall have stories of beasts,great books splendidly and clearly done of animals and birds and plantsand creeping things, great books about the deeps of the sky and themystery of the sea; he shall have histories and maps of all the empiresthe world has seen, pictures and stories of all the tribes and habitsand customs of men. And he must have books and pictures to quicken hissense of beauty, subtle Japanese pictures to make him love the subtlerbeauties of bird and tendril and falling flower, and western picturestoo, pictures of gracious men and women, sweet groupings, and broadviews of land and sea. He shall have books on the building of houses andpalaces; he shall plan rooms and invent cities--

  "I think I must give him a little theatre.

  "Then there is music!"

  Redwood thought that over, and decided that his son might best beginwith a very pure-sounding harmonicon of one octave, to which afterwardsthere could be an extension. "He shall play with this first, sing to itand give names to the notes," said Redwood, "and afterwards--?"

  He stared up at the window-sill overhead and measured the size of theroom with his eye.

  "They'll have to build his piano in here," he said. "Bring it in inpieces."

  He hovered about amidst his preparations, a pensive, dark, littlefigure. If you could have seen him there he would have looked to youlike a ten-inch man amidst common nursery things. A great rug--indeed itwas a Turkey carpet--four hundred square feet of it, upon which youngRedwood was soon to crawl--stretched to the grill-guarded electricradiator that was to warm the whole place. A man from Cossar's hungamidst scaffolding overhead, fixing the great frame that was to hold thetransitory pictures. A blotting-paper book for plant specimens as big asa house door leant against the wall, and from it projected a giganticstalk, a leaf edge or so and one flower of chickweed, all of thatgigantic size that was soon to make Urshot famous throughout thebotanical world ...

  A sort of incredulity came to Redwood as he stood among these things.

  "If it really _is_ going on--" said Redwood, staring up at the remoteceiling.

  From far away came a sound like the bellowing of a Mafficking bull,almost as if in answer.

  "It's going on all right," said Redwood. "Evidently."

  There followed resounding blows upon a table, followed by a vast crowingshout, "Gooloo! Boozoo! Bzz ..."

  "The best thing I can do," said Redwood, following out some divergentline of thought, "is to teach him myself."

  That beating became more insistent. For a moment it seemed to Redwoodthat it caught the rhythm of an engine's throbbing--the engine he couldhave imagined of some great train of events that bore down upon him.Then a descendant flight of sharper beats broke up that effect, and wererepeated.

  "Come in," he cried, perceiving that some one rapped, and the door thatwas big enough for a cathedral opened slowly a little way. The new winchceased to creak, and Bensington appeared in the crack, gleamingbenevolently under his protruded baldness and over his glasses.

  "I've ventured round to _see_," he whispered in a confidentially furtivemanner.

  "Come in," said Redwood, and he did, shutting the door behind him.

  He walked forward, hands behind his back, advanced a few steps, andpeered up with a bird-like movement at the dimensions about him. Herubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  "Every time I come in," he said, with a subdued note in his voice, "itstrikes me as--'_Big_.'"

  "Yes," said Redwood, surveying it all again also, as if in an endeavourto keep hold of the visible impression. "Yes. They're going to be bigtoo, you know."

  "I know," said Bensington, with a note that was nearly awe. "_Very_big."

  They looked at one another, almost, as it were, apprehensively.

  "Very big indeed," said Bensington, stroking the bridge of his nose, andwith one eye that watched Redwood doubtfully for a confirmatoryexpression. "All of them, you know--fearfully big. I don't seem able toimagine--even with this--just how big they're all going to be."