What had happened to this world from which he had been absent but one
short year? Was everybody mad, or was he hopelessly behind the times?
"Well?" Ruth reminded him.
Kirk eyed the dreadful room.
"It looks clean," he said at last.
"It is clean," said the voice of Lora Delane Porter proudly behind him.
She had followed them up the stairs to do the honours of the nursery,
the centre of her world. "It is essentially clean. There is not an
object in that room which is not carefully sterilized night and morning
with a weak solution of boric acid!"
"Even Mamie?" inquired Kirk.
It had been his intention to be mildly jocular, but Mrs. Porter's reply
showed him that in jest he had spoken the truth.
"Certainly. Have you any idea, Kirk, of the number of germs there are
on the surface of the human body? It runs into billions. You"--she
fixed him with her steely eye--"you are at the present moment one mass
of microbes."
"I sneaked through quarantine all right."
"To the adult there is not so much danger in these microbes, provided
he or she maintains a reasonable degree of personal cleanliness. That
is why adults may be permitted to mix with other adults without
preliminary sterilization. But in the case of a growing child it is
entirely different. No precaution is excessive. So----"
From below at this point there came the sound of the front-door bell.
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