and in a different medium.
The first offside snick of the scissors she knew to be bad before she
tried the pattern for size, and the only way she could correct such
defective work was to practice and practice until her muscles were
trained enough to respond to the direction of her mind.

Remove her now and place her in a school--even the most advanced
school--and she would undergo the unhappy treatment that James had
undergone these several years ago.

And yet she could not be cut loose. Martha was as much a part of this
very strange life as James was. So this meant that any revision in
overall policy must necessarily include the addition of Tim Fisher and
not the subtraction of Mrs. Bagley and Martha.

"Charles Maxwell" had to go.

James's problem had not changed. His machine must be kept a secret as
long as he could. The machine was his, James Quincy Holden's property by
every known and unwritten legal right of direct, single, uncluttered
inheritance. The work of his parents had been stopped by their death, but
it was by no means finished with the construction of the machine. To the
contrary, the real work had only begun with the completion of the first
working model. And whether he turned out to be a machine-made genius, an
over-powered dolt, or an introverted monster it was still his own
personal reason for being alive.

He alone should reap the benefit or the sorrow, and had his parents lived
they would have had their right to reap good or bad with him. Good or
bad, had they lived, he would have received their protection.

As it was, he had no protection whatsoever. Until he could have and hold
the right to control his own property as he himself saw fit, he had to
hide just as deep from the enemy who would steal it as he must hide from
the friend who would administrate it as a property in escrow for his own
good, since he as a minor was legally unable to walk a path both fitting
and proper for his feet.

So, the facts had to be concealed. Yet all he was buying was time.

By careful juggling, he had already bought some. Months with Jake Caslow,
a few months stolidly fighting the school, and two with the help of Mrs.
Bagley and Martha. Then in these later months there had been more
purchased time; time gained by the post-dated engagement and the
procrastinated marriage, which was now running out.

No matter what he did, it seemed that the result was a wider spread of
knowledge about the Holden Electromechan