“No!” said Cossar, in a huge shout. “No! Make as much as you can and as soon as you can. Spread it about!”
He was inspired to a stroke of wit. He parodied one of Redwood’s curves with a vast upward sweep of his arm.
“Redwood!” he said, to point the allusion, “make it SO!”
V.
There is, it seems, an upward limit to the pride of maternity, and this in the case of Mrs. Redwood was reached when her offspring completed his sixth month of terrestrial existence, broke down his high-class bassinet-perambulator, and was brought home, bawling, in the milk-truck. Young Redwood at that time weighed fifty-nine and a half pounds, measured forty-eight inches in height, and gripped about sixty pounds. He was carried upstairs to the nursery by the cook and housemaid. After that, discovery was only a question of days. One afternoon Redwood came home from his laboratory to find his unfortunate wife deep in the fascinating pages of The Mighty Atom, and at the sight of him she put the book aside and ran violently forward and burst into tears on his shoulder.
“Tell me what you have done to him,” she wailed. “Tell me what you have done.” Redwood took her hand and led her to the sofa, while he tried to think of a satisfactory line of defence.
“It’s all right, my dear,” he said; “it’s all right. You’re only a little overwrought. It’s that cheap perambulator. I’ve arranged for a bath-chair man to come round with something stouter to-morrow—”
Mrs. Redwood looked at him tearfully over the top of her handkerchief.
“A baby in a bath-chair?” she sobbed.
“Well, why not?”