n that they wanted.

It went by rote, as they had learned in childhood. It was the tiresome
repetition of going over and over and over the lines of a poem or the
numbers of the multiplication table until the pathway was a deeply
trodden furrow in the brain. Forever imprinted, it was retained until
death. Knowledge is stored by rote.

To accomplish this end, Louis Holden succeeded in violating all of the
theories of instrumentation by developing a circuit that acted as a sort
of reverberation chamber which returned the wave-shape played into it
back to the same terminals without interference, and this single circuit
became the very heart of the Holden Electromechanical Educator.

With success under way, the Holdens needed an intellectual guinea pig, a
virgin mind, an empty store-house to fill with knowledge. They planned a
twenty-year program of research, to end by handing their machine to the
world complete with its product and instructions for its use and a list
of pitfalls to avoid.

The conception of James Quincy Holden was a most carefully-planned
parenthood. It was not accomplished without love or passion. Love had
come quietly, locking them together physically as they had been bonded
intellectually. The passion had been deliberately provoked during the
proper moment of Laura Holden's cycle of ovulation. This scientific
approach to procreation was no experiment, it was the foregone-conclusive
act to produce a component absolutely necessary for the completion of
their long program of research. They happily left to Nature's Choice the
one factor they could not control, and planned to accept an infant of
either sex with equal welcome. They loved their little boy as they loved
one another, rejoiced with him, despaired with him, and made their own
way with success and mistake, and succeeded in bringing Jimmy to five
years of age quite normal except for his education.

Now, proficiency in brain surgery does not come at an early age, nor does
world-wide fame in the field of delicate instrumentation. Jimmy's parents
were over forty-five on the date of his birth.

Jimmy's grandparents were, then, understandably aged seventy-eight and
eighty-one.

* * * * *

The old couple had seen their life, and they knew it for what it was.
They arose each morning and faced the day knowing that there would be no
new problem, only recurrence of some problem long solved. Theirs was a
comfortable routi