in a specially strengthened rocking-chair and smiling and talking "goo"
and "wow." And the heart of Mrs. Redwood warmed again to her child, and
she 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 the
passage much relieved. (Eh! but it's a base job this being a man--with
women as they are!)


VI.

Before the year was out there were, in addition to Redwood's pioneer
vehicle, quite a number of motor-perambulators to be seen in the west of
London. I am told there were as many as eleven; but the most careful
inquiries yield trustworthy evidence of only six within the Metropolitan
area at that time. It would seem the stuff acted differently upon
different types of constitution. At first Herakleophorbia was not
adapted to injection, and there can be no doubt that quite a
considerable proportion of human beings are incapable of absorbing this
substance in the normal course of digestion. It was given, for example,
to Winkles' youngest boy; but he seems to have been as incapable of
growth as, if Redwood was right, his father was incapable of knowledge.
Others again, according to the Society for the Total Suppression of
Boomfood, became in some inexplicable way corrupted by it, and perished
at the onset of infantile disorders. The Cossar boys took to it with
amazing avidity.