"I don't expect an apology. Good night, Edward."

"Now you've done it, you blithering idiot," I said as I clumped upstairs to Helen. "I knew I'd end in the wrong." Helen gently told me, at the conclusion of my story, words to the same effect.

"Am I a blithering idiot, Helen dear?"

"No, sweetheart, you are just a boy," was Helen's exit line for this episode.

Our second Christmas together was drawing near, and it promised to be far different from the one we had looked forward to the year before. The factory problem was still unsolved; the building which my father had antic.i.p.ated would be humming with prosperous activity stood silent. Only in the laboratory upstairs was there any work being done, labour which still seemed but a beating of the air. I had called in more than one consulting chemist; they merely suggested that I do the things I had been doing. The advice from Germany was to the same effect. a.n.a.lyze and search for the cause among the raw materials. I had outside a.n.a.lyses made on these, to check my own by, and no clue developed. The board of directors called upon me collectively and singly to offer the inane suggestions which non-technical men always make when they wish to be helpful over a technical matter.

A week before Christmas I sat staring at samples of my raw materials spread over the laboratory table. Chitty was rinsing test tubes at the sink.

"It does beat the devil, Chitty," I said, "to think that the answer to all our trouble is staring right at us from one of these heaps of samples, and we can't find it."

"Yessir," Chitty agreed. "Don't give up, sir; 'ave another try."

I looked at my watch. It was three o'clock; the short winter day was already dusk without. A London and Northwestern express screeched past our windows.

"I'd like my overcoat, please, Chitty. I'm going home." A queer, startled look came into his face.

"You're not giving up, Mister Edward? You won't tell them you're beaten?

'Ave another shot at your last experiment. I don't mind working late tonight, sir."

"Chitty," I said, "sometimes it pays to cut your losses and start afresh. We're up a blind pa.s.sage. Let's turn round and walk out of it."

He helped me into my great coat with a doubtful air.

"Don't let them say it's done you in, sir," he said. "Come back tomorrow morning. You never know your luck, sir."

"I'll be here at the usual time, Chitty." And with this I left him.

My father, luckily, was in when I got back to Kensington. I saw him studying me carefully as I came into the library and sat down. He laid aside his pipe and waited. I was in no hurry to begin speaking.

"Discouraged, Ted?" my father at last inquired.

"No. I'm through."

"That sounds rather tragic, Ted. Just what do you mean?"

"I have been thinking this thing over. We've reached an absolutely blank wall. I can neither climb over it, tunnel under it, nor walk around it."

"Facts, please," my father interrupted. "Cut your rhetoric." I gave him a brief recapitulation of my failure, together with my reasons for believing that it was no use going on doing the same useless experiments over and over again. He listened patiently, without giving any sign of emotion.

"It doesn't make pleasant telling," I ended, "to confess one has failed."

"Have you your laboratory notebooks and diary here?"

"Yes," I admitted, "but they won't mean anything to you--they are mainly full of chemical formulae and abbreviated notes."

"Nevertheless, I wish to see them."

I went out to my bag in the pa.s.sage and brought them in.

"I'm not a scientist, Ted, but it isn't common sense that an experiment which you can do on a small scale should fail on a large scale. You have overlooked something."

"Shall I stay and explain my notes to you?"

"No, go upstairs and talk to Helen."

I came down to dinner very glum. Helen had done her best to buck me up; this time, however, even she had failed to restore my confidence. To my surprise, my father was all smiles, hinting the while at mysterious delights to come. I thought he was trying to cheer me up--an annoying thing to have any one do when one has resolved to be miserable.

"How would you and Helen like to have a little trip all by yourselves at Christmas--say to Winchester? It will do Helen good, if you are careful not to let her get tired." This he had saved up for dessert. Helen and I stared at each other, not entirely certain he wasn't having a joke at our expense.

"I'm serious, children," he added. "Your mother and I--with Frances, of course--are going down to Hayling Island. I want to get in some golf."

"I thought we were hard up," I growled, not rid of my suspicions.

"Well, we've enough for that, I think, Ted. The plant will be running full blast in January."

I sat up. "What have found out from my notes? Don't deceive yourself, father."

He laughed uproariously. "Thanks for the advice. But, Ted, I'm an old newspaper man, and I spent a good many years finding out things I was not supposed to know about. When I went over your notes I observed something I think you have missed."

My face burned. If true, of course it meant I was a d.a.m.ned incompetent person to trust with a responsible job. I felt Helen's hand on my knee.

"It isn't your fault, Ted--don't look so melodramatic. Now listen to me.

You have tested and a.n.a.lyzed all your raw materials--and have bought different lots of them from various sources?"

"Yes--I have been all over the market for them."

"But you have bought your most important reagent--a commercial acid--from only one particular firm. Did you a.n.a.lyze that acid?"

"No."

"I thought not. There was no record of it in your books."

The sensation of feeling an utter fool is not comfortable. It was the even pressure of Helen's hand on my knee that kept me from an outburst.

The instant my father had asked me the question about the acid, I knew he had found the only untested link. But why in the name of all that is intelligent had I missed it? Simply because I had been working on the set idea that the raw materials furnished contained somewhere an impurity, and I had taken the reagent on faith.

"Well," my father called out gaily, "is the old man right?"

"You are right, and I have been wrong."

"d.a.m.n it, Ted, don't be so ridiculous with that long jaw. It's all in the family. Take a week off with Helen and come back fresh to your job.

You went a bit stale, that's all."