kittens, puppies, sunflowers, mushrooms, bean plants, and (until his
wife put a stop to it) his baby, and he showed that growth went out not
at a regular pace, or, as he put it, so,

[Illustration]

but with bursts and intermissions of this sort.

[Illustration]

and that apparently nothing grew regularly and steadily, and so far as
he could make out nothing could grow regularly and steadily: it was as
if every living thing had just to accumulate force to grow, grew with
vigour only for a time, and then had to wait for a space before it could
go on growing again. And in the muffled and highly technical language of
the really careful "scientist," Redwood suggested that the process of
growth probably demanded the presence of a considerable quantity of some
necessary substance in the blood that was only formed very slowly, and
that when this substance was used up by growth, it was only very slowly
replaced, and that meanwhile the organism had to mark time. He compared
his unknown substance to oil in machinery. A growing animal was rather
like an engine, he suggested, that can move a certain distance and must
then be oiled before it can run again. ("But why shouldn't one oil the
engine from without?" said Mr. Bensington, when he read the paper.) And
all this, said Redwood, with the delightful nervous inconsecutiveness of
his class, might very probably be found to throw a light upon the
mystery of certain of the ductless glands. As though they had anything
to do with it at all!

In a subsequent communication Redwood went further. He gave a perfect