lization, the fashionable lady and the all but vulgar medical
man, has been blessed by the birth of the Superman, that being whom all
the labourers in Battersea are so eagerly expecting night and day.

I found the house of Dr. and Lady Hypatia Hagg without much difficulty;
it is situated in one of the last straggling streets of Croydon,
and overlooked by a line of poplars. I reached the door towards the
twilight, and it was natural that I should fancifully see something dark
and monstrous in the dim bulk of that house which contained the creature
who was more marvellous than the children of men. When I entered the
house I was received with exquisite courtesy by Lady Hypatia and her
husband; but I found much greater difficulty in actually seeing the
Superman, who is now about fifteen years old, and is kept by himself in
a quiet room. Even my conversation with the father and mother did not
quite clear up the character of this mysterious being. Lady Hypatia,
who has a pale and poignant face, and is clad in those impalpable and
pathetic greys and greens with which she has brightened so many homes in
Hoxton, did not appear to talk of her offspring with any of the vulgar
vanity of an ordinary human mother. I took a bold step and asked if the
Superman was nice looking.

"He creates his own standard, you see," she replied, with a slight sigh.
"Upon that plane he is more than Apollo. Seen from our lower plane, of
course--" And she sighed again.

I had a horrible impulse, and said suddenly, "Has he got any hair?"

There was a long and painful silence, and then Dr. Hagg said smoothly:
"Everything upon that plane is different; what he has got is not...
well, not, of course, what we call hair... but--"

"Don't you think," said his wife, very softly, "don't you think that
really, for the sake of argument, when talking to the mere public, one
might call it hair?"

"Perhaps you are right," said the doctor after a few moments'
reflection. "In connexion with hair like that one must speak in
parables."

"Well, what on earth is it," I asked in some irritation, "if it isn't
hair? Is it feathers?"

"Not feathers, as we understand feathers," answered Hagg in an awful
voice.

I got up in some irritation. "Can I see him, at any rate?" I asked.
"I am a journalist, and have no earthly motives except curiosity and
personal vanity. I should like to say that I had shaken hands with the
Superman."

The husband and wife had both got heavi