Page:Peter Whiffle (1922).djvu/98

 the hay and the water until he starved to death) began with his very birth. He could not, indeed, decide whether he would be born or not. The family physician, by the aid of science and the knife, decided the matter for him. Soon thereafter he often hesitated between the milk-bottle and the breast. There was, doubtless, a certain element of restlessness and curiosity connected with this vacillation, a desire to miss nothing in life. It is possible that the root of this aggressive instinct might have been deracinated but Mrs. Whiffle, with a foresense of the decrees of the most modern motherhood, held no brief for suppressed desires. Baby Peter was always permitted to choose, at least nearly always, and so, as he grew older, his mania developed accordingly. A decision actually caused him physical pain, often made him definitely ill. He would pause interminably before two toys in a shop, or at any rate until his mother bought both of them for him. He could never decide whether to go in or go out, whether to play horse or to cut out pictures. His mother has told me that on one occasion she discovered this precocious child (at the age of twelve) in the library of a Toledo bibliophile (she was in the house as a luncheon guest) with the Sonnets of Pietro Aretino in one hand and Fanny Hill in the other. He could not make up his mind from which he would derive the most pleasure. In this instance, his maternal parent intervened and took both books away from him.