palaces. But the tenth always has to be reckoned with."

"You are as bad as _Clever Alice_ in the fairy tale who worried
over the future of her unborn children," protested Eric.

"_Clever Alice_ has been very unjustly laughed at," said David
gravely. "We doctors know that. Perhaps she overdid the
worrying business a little, but she was perfectly right in
principle. If people worried a little more about their unborn
children--at least, to the extent of providing a proper heritage,
physically, mentally, and morally, for them--and then stopped
worrying about them after they ARE born, this world would be a
very much pleasanter place to live in, and the human race would
make more progress in a generation than it has done in recorded
history."

"Oh, if you are going to mount your dearly beloved hobby of
heredity I am not going to argue with you, David, man. But as
for the matter of urging me to hasten and marry me a wife, why
don't you"--It was on Eric's lips to say, "Why don't you get
married to a girl of the right sort yourself and set me a good
example?" But he checked himself. He knew that there was an old
sorrow in David Baker's life which was not to be unduly jarred by
the jests even of privileged friendship. He changed his question
to, "Why don't you leave this on the knees of the gods where it
properly belongs? I thought you were a firm believer in
predestination, David."

"Well, so I am, to a certain extent," said David cautiously. "I
believe, as an excellent old aunt of mine used to say, that what