where Overholt could watch the scale.

He would really have preferred to be alone for the first trial, but it
was utterly impossible to think of sending the boy to bed. He was sure
of success, it is true, yet he would far rather have been left to
himself till that success was no longer in the future, but present; then
at last, even if Newton had been asleep, he would have waked him and
brought him downstairs again to see his triumph. The lad's presence made
him nervous, and suggested a failure which was all but impossible. More
than once he was on the point of trying to explain this to Newton, but
when he glanced at the young face he could not find it in his heart to
speak. If he only asked the boy, as a kindness, to go into the next room
for five minutes while the machine was being started, he knew what would
happen. Newton would go quietly, without a word, and wait till he was
called; but half his Christmas would be spoilt by the disappointment he
would try hard to hide. Had they not suffered together, and had not the
boy sacrificed the best of his small possessions, dearly treasured, to
help in their joint distress? It would be nothing short of brutal to
deprive him of the first moment of triumphant surprise, that was going
to mean so much hereafter. Yet the inventor would have given anything to
be alone. He was overwrought by the long strain that had so often seemed
unbearable, and when the liquid that was heating had reached the right
temperature and the iron pot had to be taken off the stove, his hands
shook so that he nearly dropped it; but Newton did not see that.

"It's wonderful how everything has come out just right!" the boy
exclaimed as he looked at the machine. "Out of your three wishes you'll
get two, father, for the wheel will go round and I'm going to have a
regular old patent, double-barrelled Christmas with a gilt edge!" His
similes were mixed, but effective in their way. "And you'll probably get
the other wish in half a shake now, for mother'll come right home, won't
she?"

"If the trial succeeds," Overholt said, still instinctively seeking to
forestall a disappointment he did not expect. "Nothing is a fact until
it has happened, you know!"

"Well," said Newton, "if I had anything to bet with, and somebody to bet
against, I'd bet, that's all. But I haven't. It's a pity too, now that
everything's coming out right. Do you remember how we were trying to
make bricks without straw less than a month ago