"You know the expression, 'if I had only known then what I know now.' People are constantly saying how much better things would be if they had only been born with the knowledge of a lifetime. How would it be if we arrange to have this child born knowing everything that he's destined to learn throughout all his earthly years?"
"You mean so he can see into the future?"
"No, no, nothing so trite as that. Just let him know at the outset all the things that he will eventually learn so that he may apply them to his life as he goes along."
Mac slapped his broad hands together with enthusiastic approval. "Hey, that's wonderful!" he said. "It sounds classy, too. We make this million quadrillionth baby the most wised-up kid any pair of parents ever had. Write that down, Haywood, just like you said it. Put it in the special specifications part."
"All right," Haywood said, rather pleased with himself, "then, that's what it'll be." He turned carefully back to the cloud bank, wriggled his knees into its fleecy confines and took up his pen. "I'll have to word it carefully so there won't be any oversight."
"Gosh!" Mac grinned rapturously, "just think how tickled those parents are going to be. It makes you feel good just thinking about it!"
Hair rumpled and necktie askew, Lester sat in the hospital waiting room and smoked endless cigarettes. Across from him sat another young man in a similar state of disheveled conflagration, but the two of them did not speak. The situation was understood and words would only make it worse. Time passed.
At last a door swung open and a nurse with a starched expression and a severe uniform stepped flat-footedly into the room. In unison Lester and his companion sat up and looked around like a pair of beagles alerted to the scent of the fox. There was an ominous pause while the nurse, indulging a sadistic sense of the dramatic, looked questioningly from one to the other.
"Mr. Holmes?" she asked crisply.