t must continue. During the school year we
must not be visible to the general public."

"But dammit, I don't want to set up my family in someone else's house,"
objected Tim Fisher.

"Buy this one," suggested James. "Then it will be yours. I'll stay on and
pay rent on my section."

"You'll--now wait a minute! What are you talking about?"

"I said, _'I'll pay rent on my section,'_" said James.

"But this guy upstairs--" Tim took a long breath. "Let's get this
straight," he said, "now that we're on the subject, what about Mr.
Charles Maxwell?"

"I can best quote," said James with a smile, "'Oh, what a tangled web we
weave, when first we practice to deceive!'"

"That's Shakespeare."

"Sorry. That's Sir Walter Scott. _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_. Canto
Six, Stanza Seventeen. The fact of the matter is that we could go on
compounding this lie, but it's time to stop it. Mr. Charles Maxwell
does not exist."

"I don't understand!"

"Hasn't it puzzled you that this hermit-type character that never puts a
foot out of the house has been out and gone on some unstated vacation or
business trip for most of the spring and summer?"

"Hadn't given it a thought," said Fisher with a fatuous look at Mrs.
Bagley. She mooned back at him. For a moment they were lost in one
another, giving proof to the idea that blinder than he who will not
see is the fellow who has his eye on a woman.

"Charles Maxwell does not exist except in the minds of his happy
readers," said James. "He is a famous writer of boys' stories and known
to a lot of people for that talent. Yet he is no more a real person
than Lewis Carroll."

"But Lewis Carroll did exist--"

"As Charles L. Dodgson, a mathematician famous for his work in symbolic
logic."

"All right! Then who writes these stories? Who supports you--and this
house?"

"I do!"

Tim blinked, looked around the room a bit wildly and then settled on
Martha, looking at her helplessly.

"It's true, Tim," she said quietly. "It's crazy but it works. I've been
living with it for years."

Tim considered that for a full minute. "All right," he said shortly. "So
it works. But why does any kid have to live for himself?" He eyed James.
"Who's responsible for you?"

"I am!"

"But--"

"Got an hour?" asked James with a smile. "Then listen--"

At the end of James Holden's long explanation, Tim Fisher said, "Me--?
Now, I need a drink!"

James chuckled, "Alcoholic, of course--which is Pi to seven de