“Connie says people like wisps of smoke, and Olive says immunised women, and babies in bottles, and Dukes says the phallus is the bridge to what comes next. I wonder what it will really be?” said Clifford.

“Oh, don’t bother! let’s get on with today,” said Olive. “Only hurry up with the breeding bottle, and let us poor women off.”

“There might even be real men, in the next phase,” said Tommy. “Real, intelligent, wholesome men, and wholesome nice women! Wouldn’t that be a change, an enormous change from us? We’re not men, and the women aren’t women. We’re only cerebrating makeshifts, mechanical and intellectual experiments. There may even come a civilization of genuine men and women, instead of our little lot of clever-jacks, all at the intelligence-age of seven. It would be even more amazing than men of smoke or babies in bottles.”

“Oh, when people begin to talk about real women, I give up,” said Olive.