.

So Challis waited and said little; and Lewes was puzzled, because he was
beginning to doubt whether it were possible that the child could sustain
a pose so long. That, in itself, would be evidence of extraordinary
abnormality. Lewes fumbled in his mind for another hypothesis.

This reading craze may be symptomatic of some form of idiocy, he
thought; "and I don't believe he does read," was his illogical
deduction.

Mrs. Stott usually came to meet her son, and sometimes she would come
early in the afternoon and stand at the window watching him at his work;
but neither Challis nor Lewes ever saw the Wonder display by any sign
that he was aware of his mother's presence.

During those three weeks the Wonder held himself completely detached
from any intercourse with the world of men. At the end of that period he
once more manifested his awareness of the human factor in existence.

Challis, if he spoke little to Lewes of the Wonder during this time,
maintained a strict observation of the child's doings.

The Wonder began his last volume of the Encyclopaedia one Wednesday
afternoon soon after lunch, and on Thursday morning, Challis was
continually in and out of the room watching the child's progress, and
noting his nearness to the end of the colossal task he had undertaken.

At a quarter to twelve he took up his old position in the doorway, and
with his hands clasped behind his back he watched the reading of the
last forty pages.

There was no slackening and no quickening in the Wonder's rate of
progress. He read the articles under "Z" with the same attention he had
given to the remainder of the work, and then, arrived at the last page,
he closed the volume and took up the Index.

Challis suffered a qualm; not so much on account of the possible
postponement of the crisis he was awaiting, as because he saw that the
reading of the Index could only be taken as a sign that the whole study
had been unintelligent. No one could conceivably have any purpose in
reading through an index.

And at this moment Lewes joined him in the doorway.

"What volume has he got to now?" asked Lewes.

"The Index," returned Challis.

Lewes was no less quick in drawing his inference than Challis had been.

"Well, that settles it, I should think," was Lewes's comment.

"Wait, wait," returned Challis.

The Wonder turned a dozen pages at once, glanced at the new opening,
made a further brief examination of two or three headings near th