his entire day. To take
some advantage of his time, James began to indulge in talk-fests with
Mrs. Bagley.

These were informative. He was learning from her how the outside world
was run, from one who had no close association with his own former life.
Mrs. Bagley was by no means well-informed on all sides of life, but she
did have her opinions and her experiences and a fair idea of how things
went on in her own level. And, of course, James had made this choice
because of the girl. He wanted a companion of his own age. Regardless of
what Mrs. Bagley really thought of this matter of rapid education, James
proposed to use it on Martha. That would give him a companion of his own
like, they would come closer to understanding one another than he could
ever hope to find understanding elsewhere.

So he talked and played with Martha in his moments of relaxation. And he
found her grasp of life completely unreal.

James could not get through to her. He could not make her stop
play-acting in everything that she did not ignore completely. It worried
him.

With the arrival of summer, James and Martha played outside in the fresh
air. They made a few shopping excursions into town, walking the mile and
more by taking their time, and returning with their shopping load in the
station-master's taxicab mail car. But on these expeditions, James hung
close to Martha lest her babbling prattle start an unwelcome line of
thought. She never did it, but James was forever on edge.

This source of possible danger drove him hard. The machine that was
growing in a mare's-nest on the second floor began to evolve faster.

James Holden's work was a strangely crude efficiency. The prototype had
been built by his father bit by bit and step by step as its design
demanded. Sections were added as needed, and other sections believed
needed were abandoned as the research showed them unnecessary. Louis
Holden had been a fine instrumentation engineer, but his first models
were hay-wired in the breadboard form. James copied his father's
work--including his father's casual breadboard style. And he added some
inefficiencies of his own.

Furthermore, James was not strong enough to lift the heavier assemblies
into place. James parked the parts wherever they would sit.

To Mrs. Bagley, the whole thing was bizarre and unreasonable. Given her
opinion, with no other evidence, she would have rejected the idea at
once. She simply did not understand anything of a t