ion. He fell forward from
the chair, asprawl on wobbly hands and knees, on elbows and knees as he
tried to press away the torrent of agony that hammered back and forth
from temple to temple. James watched Brennan with cold detachment,
Professor White and Jack Cowling looked on in paralyzed horror. Slowly,
oh, so slowly, Paul Brennan managed to squirm around until he was sitting
on the floor still cradling his head between his hands.

James said, "I'm afraid that you're going to have a rough time whenever
you hear the word 'entrenched'." And then, as Brennan made no response,
James Holden went on, "Or were you by chance reading the word
'pedagogue'?"

At the word, Brennan howled again; the pain was too much for him and he
toppled sidewise to writhe in kicking agony.

James smiled coldly, "I'm sorry that you weren't reading the word 'the'.
The English language uses more of them than the word 'pedagogue'."

With remarkable effort, Brennan struggled to his feet; he lurched toward
James. "I'll teach you, you little--"

"Pedagogue?" asked James.

The shock rocked Brennan right to the floor again.

"Better sit there and think," said James coldly. "You come within a dozen
yards of me and I'll say--"

"No! Don't!" screamed Paul Brennan. "Not again!"

"Now," asked James, "what's going on here?"

"He was memorizing a political speech," said Jack Cowling. "What did you
do?"

"I merely fixed my machine so that it will not be used again."

"But you shouldn't have done that!"

"You shouldn't have been using it for this purpose," replied James. "It
wasn't intended to further political ambitions."

"But Judge Carter--"

"Judge Carter doesn't own it," said James. "I do."

"I'm sure that Judge Carter can explain everything."

"Tell him so. Then add that if he'd bothered to give me the time of day,
I'd be less angry. He's not to be interrupted, is he? I'm ordered out of
my room, am I? Well, go tell the judge that his political campaign has
been stopped by a fourteen-year-old boy who knows which button to push!
I'll wait here."

Professor White took off; Jack Cowling smiled crookedly and shook his
head at James. "You're a rash young man," he said. "What did you do to
Brennan, here?"

James pointed at the smoke curling up out of the panel. "I put in a
destructive charge to addle the circuit as a preventive measure against
capture or use by unauthorized persons," he replied. "So I pushed the
button just as Brennan was