The things in the workshop all seemed to be talking to him together, and made his head ache.

“I had a letter from your mother to-day,” he said, because it was better to hear his own voice say anything than to listen to such depressing imaginary conversations.  “I’m sorry to say she sees no chance of getting home before the spring.”

“I don’t know where you’d put her if she came here,” answered the practical Newton.  “Your room leaks when it rains, and so does mine.  You two would have to sleep in the parlour.  I guess it’ll be better if she doesn’t come now.”

“Oh, for her, far better,” assented Overholt.  “They’ve got a beautiful flat in Munich, and everything they can possibly think of.  Your mother’s only complaint, so far as that goes, is that those girls are completely spoilt by too much luxury!”

“What is luxury, exactly, father?” asked Newton, who always wanted to know things.

“I shall never know myself, and perhaps you never will either!” The wretched inventor tried to laugh.  “But that’s no answer to your question, is it?  I suppose luxury means always having twice as much of everything as you can possibly use, and having it about ten times as fine and expensive as other people can afford.”

“I don’t see any use in that,” said the boy.  “Now I know just how much turkey and cranberry sauce and ice-cream I really need, and if I get just a little more than that, it’s Christmas.  I don’t mean much more, but about half a helping.  I know all about proverbs.  Haven’t I copied millions of ’em in learning to write.  One reason why it’s so slow to learn is that the things you have to write are perfect nonsense.  ’Enough is as good as a feast!’ All I can say is, the man who made that proverb never had a feast, or he’d have known better!  This green paint doesn’t dry very quick, father.  We’ll have to wait till to-morrow before we put in the red spots for the berries.  I wish I had some little red beads.  They’d stick on the wet paint now, like one o’clock.”

There were no red beads, so he rose to go to bed.  When he had said good-night and had reached the door, he stopped and looked back again.

“Say, father, haven’t you anything you can sell to get some more money for the Motor?”

John Henry shook his weary head and smiled sadly.

“Nothing that would bring nearly enough to pay for the casting,” he answered.  “Don’t worry about it, boy.  Leave that to me—­I’m used to it.  Go to bed and sleep, and you’ll feel like an Air-Motor yourself in the morning!”

“That’s the worst of it,” returned the boy.  “Just to sit there under a glass case and have you take care of me and do nothing, like a girl.  That’s the way I feel sometimes.”

He shook his young head quite as gravely as the inventor had shaken his own, and went quietly to bed without saying anything more.

“I don’t know what to do, I’m sure,” he said to himself as he got into bed, “but I’m sure there’s something.  Maybe I’ll dream it, and then I’ll do just the contrary and it’ll come all right.”