e
whole thing--"

"We take the _Daily Chronicle_," said Bensington.

"And the _Times_ has a long leader on the subject--a very high-class,
well-written leader, with three pieces of _Times_ Latin--_status quo_ is
one--and it reads like the voice of Somebody Impersonal of the Greatest
Importance suffering from Influenza Headache and talking through sheets
and sheets of felt without getting any relief from it whatever. Reading
between the lines, you know, it's pretty clear that the _Times_
considers that it is useless to mince matters, and that something
(indefinite of course) has to be done at once. Otherwise still more
undesirable consequences--_Times_ English, you know, for more wasps and
stings. Thoroughly statesmanlike article!"

"And meanwhile this Bigness is spreading in all sorts of ugly ways."

"Precisely."

"I wonder if Skinner was right about those big rats--"

"Oh no! That would be too much," said Redwood.

He came and stood by Bensington's chair.

"By-the-bye," he said, with a slightly lowered voice, "how does
_she_--?"

He indicated the closed door.

"Cousin Jane? She simply knows nothing about it. Doesn't connect us with
it and won't read the articles. 'Gigantic wasps!' she says, 'I haven't
patience to read the papers.'"

"That's very fortunate," said Redwood.

"I suppose--Mrs. Redwood--?"

"No," said Redwood, "just at present it happens--she's terribly worried
about the child. You know, he keeps on."

"Growing?"

"Yes. Put on forty-one ounces in ten days. Weighs nearly four stone. And
only six months old! Naturally rather alarming."

"Healthy?"

"Vigorous. His nurse is leaving because he kicks so forcibly. And
everything, of course, shockingly outgrown. Everything, you know, has
had to be made fresh, clothes and everything. Perambulator--light
affair--broke one wheel, and the youngster had to be brought home on the
milkman's hand-truck. Yes. Quite a crowd.... And we've put Georgina
Phyllis back into his cot and put him into the bed of Georgina Phyllis.
His mother--naturally alarmed. Proud at first and inclined to praise
Winkles. Not now. Feels the thing _can't_ be wholesome. _You_ know."

"I imagined you were going to put him on diminishing doses."

"I tried it."

"Didn't it work?"

"Howls. In the ordinary way the cry of a child is loud and distressing;
it is for the good of the species that this should be so--but since he
has been on the Herakleophorbia treatment---"

"Mm," s