This here Progress, said Mr. Tom Smallways, it keeps on.You'd hardly think it could keep on, said Mr. Tom Smallways.It was along before the War in the Air began that Mr. Smallways made this remark. He was sittingon the fence at the end of his garden ... Read more

This here Progress, said Mr. Tom Smallways, it keeps on.You'd hardly think it could keep on, said Mr. Tom Smallways.It was along before the War in the Air began that Mr. Smallways made this remark. He was sittingon the fence at the end of his garden and surveying the great Bun Hill gas-works with an eye thatneither praised nor blamed. Above the clustering gasometers three unfamiliar shapes appeared, thin,wallowing bladders that flapped and rolled about, and grew bigger and bigger and rounder androunder-balloons in course of inflation for the South of England Aero Club's Saturday-afternoonascent.They goes up every Saturday, said his neighbour, Mr. Stringer, the milkman. It's only yestiday,so to speak, when all London turned out to see a balloon go over, and now every little place in thecountry has its weekly-outings-uppings, rather. It's been the salvation of them gas companies.Larst Satiday I got three barrer-loads of gravel off my petaters, said Mr. Tom Smallways.Three barrer-loads! What they dropped as ballase. Some of the plants was broke, and some wasburied.Ladies, they say, goes up!I suppose we got to call 'em ladies, said Mr. Tom Smallways.Still, it ain't hardly my idea of a lady-flying about in the air, and throwing gravel at people. Itain't what I been accustomed to consider ladylike, whether or no.Mr. Stringer nodded his head approvingly, and for a time they continued to regard the swellingbulks with expressions that had changed from indifference to disapproval.Mr. Tom Smallways was a green-grocer by trade and a gardener by disposition; his little wifeJessica saw to the shop, and Heaven had planned him for a peaceful world. Unfortunately Heavenhad not planned a peaceful world for him. He lived in a world of obstinate and incessant change,and in parts where its operations were unsparingly conspicuous. Vicissitude was in the very soil hetilled; even his garden was upon a yearly tenancy, and overshadowed by a huge board thatproclaimed it not so much a garden as an eligible building site. He was horticulture under notice toquit, the last patch of country in a district flooded by new and (other) things. He did his best toconsole himself, to imagine matters near the turn of the tide.You'd hardly think it could keep on, he said.Mr. Smallways' aged father, could remember Bun Hill as an idyllic Kentish village. He had drivenSir Peter Bone until he was fifty and then he took to drink a little, and driving the station bus, whichlasted him until he was seventy-eight. Then he retired. He sat by the fireside, a shrivelled, very, veryold coachman, full charged with reminiscences, and ready for any careless stranger. Less