This Boomfood came in at first as it were a thing in an odd paragraph of the newspapers, then as a source of intellectual difficulty with his brother.

But it came to him presently that Boomfood was persistently coming in upon any topic he began.
In those days the world was a patchwork of transition, so that this great new fact came to him in a series of shocks of contrast.

The process of change had not been uniform; it had spread from one centre of distribution here and another centre there.

The country was in patches: great areas where the Food was still to come, and areas where it was already in the soil and in the air, sporadic and contagious.

It was a bold new motif creeping in among ancient and venerable airs.
The contrast was very vivid indeed along the line from Dover to London at that time.