hat his identity was known, and
proceeded to ask questions on the strange arrangements of the place
without reserve.

On either side of the passage, which was silent and padded, as if to
deaden the footfall, were narrow little doors, their size and arrangement
suggestive of the cells of a Victorian prison. But the upper portion of
each door was of the same greenish transparent stuff that had enclosed
him at his awakening, and within, dimly seen, lay, in every case, a very
young baby in a little nest of wadding. Elaborate apparatus watched the
atmosphere and rang a bell far away in the central office at the
slightest departure from the optimum of temperature and moisture. A
system of such _creches_ had almost entirely replaced the hazardous
adventures of the old-world nursing. The attendant presently called
Graham's attention to the wet nurses, a vista of mechanical figures, with
arms, shoulders, and breasts of astonishingly realistic modelling,
articulation, and texture, but mere brass tripods below, and having in
the place of features a flat disc bearing advertisements likely to be of
interest to mothers.

Of all the strange things that Graham came upon that night, none jarred
more upon his habits of thought than this place. The spectacle of the
little pink creatures, their feeble limbs swaying uncertainly in vague
first movements, left alone, without embrace or endearment, was wholly
repugnant to him. The attendant doctor was of a different opinion. His
statistical evidence showed beyond dispute that in the Victorian times
the most dangerous passage of life was the arms of the mother, that there
human mortality had ever been most terrible. On the other hand this
_creche_ company, the International Creche Syndicate, lost not one-half
per cent, of the million babies or so that formed its peculiar care. But
Graham's prejudice was too strong even for those figures.

Along one of the many passages of the place they presently came upon a
young couple in the usual blue canvas peering through the transparency
and laughing hysterically at the bald head of their first-born. Graham's
face must have showed his estimate of them, for their merriment ceased
and they looked abashed. But this little incident accentuated his sudden
realisation of the gulf between his habits of thought and the ways of the
new age. He passed on to the crawling rooms and the Kindergarten,
perplexed and distressed. He found the endless long playrooms wer