(_She looks curiously around room, specially indicating filing
cabinets and the stacks of government reports on table._) Your
laboratory.

{Knox}

Ah, if I were only as great a sociological wizard as Edison is a
wizard in physical sciences.

{Margaret}

But you are. You labor more mightily than you admit--or dare to
think. Oh, I know you--better than you do yourself.

{Tommy}

Do you read all those books?

{Knox}

Yes, I am still going to school and studying hard. What are you
going to study to be when you grow up?

(_Tommy meditates but does not answer._)

President of these great United States?

{Tommy}

(_Shaking his head._) Father says the President doesn't amount to
much.

{Knox}

Not a Lincoln?

(_Tommy is in doubt._)

{Margaret}

But don't you remember what a great good man Lincoln was? You
remember I told you?

{Tommy}

(_Shaking his head slowly._) But I don't want to be killed.--I'll
tell you what!

{Knox}

What?

{Tommy}

I want to be a senator like father. He makes them dance.

(_Margaret is shocked, and Knox's eyes twinkle._)

{Knox}

Makes whom dance?

{Tommy} (_Puzzled._) I don't know.

(_With added confidence._) But he makes them dance just the same.

(_Margaret makes a signal to Linda to take Tommy across the room._)

{Linda}

(_Starting to cross stage to left._) Come, Tommy. Let us look out
of the window.

{Tommy}

I'd rather talk with Mr. Knox.

{Margaret}

Please do, Tommy. Mamma wants to talk to Mr. Knox.

(_Tommy yields, and crosses to right, where he joins Linda in
looking out of the window._)

{Margaret}

You might ask me to take a seat

{Knox}

Oh! I beg pardon.

(_He draws up a comfortable chair for her, and seats himself in
desk-chair, facing her._)

{Margaret}

I have only a few minutes. Tom is at father's, and I am to pick
him up there and go on to that dinner, after I've taken Tommy
home.

{Knox}

But your maid?

{Margaret}

Linda? Wild horses could not drag from her anything that she
thought would harm me. So intense is her fidelity that it almost
shames me. I do not deserve it. But this is not what I came to
you about.

(_She speaks the following hurriedly._) After you left this
afternoon, something happened. Father received a telegram. It
seemed most important. His secretary followed upon the heels of
the telegram. Father called Tom and Mr. Hubbard to him and they
held a conference. I think they have discovered