“Disappointed!” sniffed the housekeeper, though touched. “Because of that disgraceful thing. He should be in an institution where they keep such monsters!”
“All right, we’ll talk about it later. Go ahead, boy, take your bath. And, Beulah, see if you can’t rustle up some old clothes of mine.”
With a last look of disapproval, Beulah flounced out of the room.
“Don’t mind her, boy,” Scanlon said when she left “She was my nurse once and she still has a sort of proprietary interest in me. She won’t harm you. Go take your bath.”
The Tweenie was a different person altogether when he finally seated himself at the dining-room table. Now that the layer of grime was removed, there was something quite handsome about his thin face, and his high, clear forehead gave him a markedly intellectual look. His hair still stood erect, a foot tall, in spite of the moistening it had received. In the light its brilliant whiteness took an imposing dignity, and to Scanlon it seemed to lose all ugliness.
“Do you like cold chicken?” asked Scanlon.
“Oh, yes! ” enthusiastically.
“Then pitch in. And when you finish that, you can have more. Take anything on the table.”
The Tweenie’s eyes glistened as he set his jaws to work; and, between the two of them, the table was bare in a few minutes.
“Well, now,” exclaimed Scanlon when the repast had reached its end, “I think you might answer some questions now. What’s your name?”
“They called me Max.”
“Ah! And your last name?”
The Tweenie shrugged his shoulders. “They never called me anything but Max-when they spoke to me at all. I don’t suppose a half-breed needs a name.” There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice.
“But what were you doing running wild through the country? Why aren’t you where you live?”
“I was in a home. Anything is better than being in a home-even the world outside, which I had never seen. Especially after Tom died.”
“Who was Tom, Max?” Scanlon spoke softly.
“He was the only other one like me. He was younger- fifteen-but he died.” He looked up from the table, fury in his eyes. “They killed him, Mr. Scanlon. He was such a young fellow, and so friendly. He couldn’t stand being alone the way I could. He needed friends and fun, and-all he had was me. No one else would speak to him, because he was a half-breed. And when he died I couldn’t stand it anymore either. I left”
“They meant to be kind. Max. You shouldn’t have done that You’re not like other people; they don’t understand you. And they must have done something for you. You talk as though you’ve had some education.”
“I could attend classes, all right,” he assented gloomily. “But I had to sit in a corner away from all the others. They let me read all I wanted, though, and I’m thankful for that.”
“Well, there you are. Max. You weren’t so badly off, were you?”
Max lifted his head and stared at the other suspiciously. “You’re not going to send me back, are you?” He half rose, as though ready for instant flight.
Scanlon coughed uneasily. “Of course, if you don’t want to go back I won’t make you. But it would be the best thing for you.”
“It wouldn’t!” Max cried vehemently.
“Well, have it your own way. Anyway, I think you’d better go to sleep now. You need it. We’ll talk in the morning.”
He led the still suspicious Tweenie up to the second floor, and pointed out a small bedroom. “That’s yours for the night I’ll be in the next room later on, and if you need anything just shout.” He turned to leave, then thought of something. “But remember, you mustn’t try to run away during the night”
“Word of honor. I won’t”
Scanlon retired thoughtfully to the room he called his study. He lit a dim lamp and seated himself in a worn armchair. For ten minutes he sat without moving, and for the first time in six years thought about something besides his dream of atomic power.
A quiet knock sounded, and at his grunted acknowledgment Beulah entered. She was frowning, her lips pursed. She planted herself firmly before him.
“Oh, Jefferson! To think that you should do this! If your dear mother knew…”
“Sit down, Beulah,” Scanlon waved at another chair, “and don’t worry about my mother. She wouldn’t have minded.”
“No. Your father was a good-hearted simpleton, too. You’re just like him, Jefferson. First you spend all your money on silly machines that might blow the house up any day-and now you pick up that awful creature from the streets… Tell me, Jefferson,” there was a solemn and fearful pause, “are you thinking of keeping it?”
Scanlon smiled moodily. “I think I am, Beulah. I can’t very well do anything else.”
A week later Scanlon was in his workshop. During the night before, his brain, rested by the change in the monotony brought about by the presence of Max, had thought of a possible solution to the puzzle of why his machine wouldn’t work. Perhaps some of the parts were defective, he thought. Even a very slight flaw in some of the parts could render the machine inoperative.
He plunged into work ardently. At the end of half an hour the machine lay scattered on his workbench, and Scanlon was sitting on a high stool, eying it disconsolately.
He scarcely heard the door softly open and close. It wasn’t until the intruder had coughed twice that the absorbed inventor realized another was present.
“Oh-it’s Max.” His abstracted gaze gave way to recognition. “Did you want to see me?”
“If you’re busy I can wait, Mr. Scanlon.” The week had not removed his shyness. “But there were a lot of books in my room…”
“Books? Oh, I’ll have them cleaned out, if you don’t want them. I don’t suppose you do,-they’re mostly textbooks, as I remember. A bit too advanced for you just now.”
“Oh, it’s not too difficult,” Max assured him. He pointed to a book he was carrying. “I just wanted you to explain a bit here in Quantum Mechanics. There’s some math with Integral Calculus that I don’t quite understand. It bothers me. Here- wait till I find it.”
He ruffled the pages, but stopped suddenly as he became aware of his surroundings. “Oh say-are you breaking up your model?”
The question brought the hard facts back to Scanlon at a bound. He smiled bitterly. “No, not yet. I just thought there might be something wrong with the insulation or the connections that kept it from functioning. There isn’t-I’ve made a mistake somewhere.”
“That’s too bad, Mr. Scanlon.” The Tweenie’s smooth brow wrinkled mournfully.
“The worst of it is that I can’t imagine what’s wrong. I’m positive the theory’s perfect-I’ve checked every way I can. I’ve gone over the mathematics time and time again, and each time it says the same thing. Space-distortion fields of such and such an intensity will smash the atom to smithereens. Only they don’t.”
“May I see the equations?”
Scanlon gazed at his ward quizzically, but could see nothing in his face other than the most serious interest He shrugged his shoulders. “There they are-under that ream of yellow paper on the desk. I don’t know if you can read them, though. I’ve been too lazy to type them out, and my handwriting is pretty bad.”
Max scrutinized them carefully and flipped the sheets one by one. “It’s a bit over my head, I guess.”
The inventor smiled a little. “I rather thought they would be. Max.”
He looked around the littered room, and a sudden sense of anger came over him. Why wouldn’t the thing work? Abruptly he got up and snatched his coat “I’m going out of here. Max,” he said. “Tell Beulah not to make me anything hot for lunch. It would be cold before I got back.”
It was afternoon when he opened the front door, and hunger was sharp enough to prevent him from realizing with a puzzled start that someone was at work in his laboratory. There came to his ears a sharp buzzing sound followed by a momentary silence and then again the buzz which this time merged into a sharp crackling that lasted an instant and was gone.
He bounded down the hall and threw open the laboratory door. The sight that met his eyes froze him into an attitude of sheer astonishment-stunned incomprehension.