"The proper allowance for a child of that age," said the parish doctor, "is a pint and a half to two pints in the twenty-four hours. I don"t see that you are called upon to provide more. If you do, it is your own generosity. Of course we might try the legitimate quant.i.ty for a few days. But the child, I must admit, seems for some reason to be physiologically different. Possibly what is called a Sport. A case of General Hypertrophy."
"It isn"t fair to the other parish children," said Lady Wondershoot. "I am certain we shall have complaints if this goes on."
"I don"t see that any one can be expected to give more than the recognised allowance. We might insist on its doing with that, or if it wouldn"t, send it as a case into the Infirmary."
"I suppose," said Lady Wondershoot, reflecting, "that apart from the size and the appet.i.te, you don"t find anything else abnormal--nothing monstrous?"
"No. No, I don"t. But no doubt if this growth goes on, we shall find grave moral and intellectual deficiencies. One might almost prophesy that from Max Nordau"s law. A most gifted and celebrated philosopher, Lady Wondershoot. He discovered that the abnormal is--abnormal, a most valuable discovery, and well worth bearing in mind. I find it of the utmost help in practice. When I come upon anything abnormal, I say at once, This is abnormal." His eyes became profound, his voice dropped, his manner verged upon the intimately confidential. He raised one hand stiffly. "And I treat it in that spirit," he said.
V.
"Tut, tut!" said the Vicar to his breakfast things--the day after the coming of Mrs. Skinner. "Tut, tut! what"s this?" and poised his gla.s.ses at his paper with a general air of remonstrance.
"Giant wasps! What"s the world coming to? American journalists, I suppose! Hang these Novelties! Giant gooseberries are good enough for me.
"Nonsense!" said the Vicar, and drank off his coffee at a gulp, eyes steadfast on the paper, and smacked his lips incredulously.
"Bosh!" said the Vicar, rejecting the hint altogether.
But the next day there was more of it, and the light came.
Not all at once, however. When he went for his const.i.tutional that day he was still chuckling at the absurd story his paper would have had him believe. Wasps indeed--killing a dog! Incidentally as he pa.s.sed by the site of that first crop of puff-b.a.l.l.s he remarked that the gra.s.s was growing very rank there, but he did not connect that in any way with the matter of his amus.e.m.e.nt. "We should certainly have heard something of it," he said; "Whitstable can"t be twenty miles from here."
Beyond he found another puff-ball, one of the second crop, rising like a roc"s egg out of the abnormally coa.r.s.ened turf.
The thing came upon him in a flash.
He did not take his usual round that morning. Instead he turned aside by the second stile and came round to the Caddles" cottage. "Where"s that baby?" he demanded, and at the sight of it, "Goodness me!"
He went up the village blessing his heart, and met the doctor full tilt coming down. He grasped his arm. "What does this _mean_?" he said. "Have you seen the paper these last few days?"
The doctor said he had.
"Well, what"s the matter with that child? What"s the matter with everything--wasps, puff-b.a.l.l.s, babies, eh? What"s making them grow so big? This is most unexpected. In Kent too! If it was America now--"
"It"s a little difficult to say just what it is," said the doctor. "So far as I can grasp the symptoms--"
"Yes?"
"It"s Hypertrophy--General Hypertrophy."
"Hypertrophy?"
"Yes. General--affecting all the bodily structures--all the organism. I may say that in my own mind, between ourselves, I"m very nearly convinced it"s that.... But one has to be careful."
"Ah," said the Vicar, a good deal relieved to find the doctor equal to the situation. "But how is it it"s breaking out in this fashion, all over the place?"
"That again," said the doctor, "is difficult to say."
"Urshot. Here. It"s a pretty clear case of spreading."
"Yes," said the doctor. "Yes. I think so. It has a strong resemblance at any rate to some sort of epidemic. Probably Epidemic Hypertrophy will meet the case."
"Epidemic!" said the Vicar. "You don"t mean it"s contagious?"
The doctor smiled gently and rubbed one hand against the other. "That I couldn"t say," he said.
"But---!" cried the Vicar, round-eyed. "If it"s _catching_--it--it affects _us!_"
He made a stride up the road and turned about.
"I"ve just been there," he cried. "Hadn"t I better---? I"ll go home at once and have a bath and fumigate my clothes."
The doctor regarded his retreating back for a moment, and then turned about and went towards his own house....
But on the way he reflected that one case had been in the village a month without any one catching the disease, and after a pause of hesitation decided to be as brave as a doctor should be and take the risks like a man.
And indeed he was well advised by his second thoughts. Growth was the last thing that could ever happen to him again. He could have eaten--and the Vicar could have eaten--Herakleophorbia by the truckful. For growth had done with them. Growth had done with these two gentlemen for evermore.
VI.
It was a day or so after this conversation--a day or so, that is, after the burning of the Experimental Farm--that Winkles came to Redwood and showed him an insulting letter. It was an anonymous letter, and an author should respect his character"s secrets. "You are only taking credit for a natural phenomenon," said the letter, "and trying to advertise yourself by your letter to the _Times_. You and your Boomfood!
Let me tell you, this absurdly named food of yours has only the most accidental connection with those big wasps and rats. The plain fact is there is an epidemic of Hypertrophy--Contagious Hypertrophy--which you have about as much claim to control as you have to control the solar system. The thing is as old as the hills. There was Hypertrophy in the family of Anak. Quite outside your range, at Cheasing Eyebright, at the present time there is a baby--"
"Shaky up and down writing. Old gentleman apparently," said Redwood.
"But it"s odd a baby--"
He read a few lines further, and had an inspiration.
"By Jove!" said he. "That"s my missing Mrs. Skinner!"
He descended upon her suddenly in the afternoon of the following day.
She was engaged in pulling onions in the little garden before her daughter"s cottage when she saw him coming through the garden gate. She stood for a moment "consternated," as the country folks say, and then folded her arms, and with the little bunch of onions held defensively under her left elbow, awaited his approach. Her mouth opened and shut several times; she mumbled her remaining tooth, and once quite suddenly she curtsied, like the blink of an arc-light.
"I thought I should find you," said Redwood.
"I thought you might, sir," she said, without joy.
"Where"s Skinner?"
""E ain"t never written to me, Sir, not once, nor come nigh of me since I came here. Sir."
"Don"t you know what"s become of him?"
"Him not having written, no, Sir," and she edged a step towards the left with an imperfect idea of cutting off Redwood from the barn door.