Good Will must reign, and reign alone, like Alexander; so that there is nothing at all to regret, and nothing hurts anybody any more, and they are all happy in just wishing for King Christmas to open the door softly and make them all great people in his kingdom.  But if it is the right sort of house, he is already looking in through the window, to be sure that every one is all ready for him, and that nothing has been forgotten.

Now, although Overholt’s cottage was a miserable place for a professor who had lived very comfortably and well in a College town, and although the thirteen-year-old boy could remember several pretty trees, lighted up with coloured candles and gleaming with tinsel and gilt apples, they both felt that this was going to be the greatest Christmas in their lives, because the motionless Motor was going to move, and that would mean everything—­most of all to both of them, the end of the mother’s exile, and her speedy home-coming.  Therefore neither said anything for a long time while the chemical stuff was slowly warming itself and getting ready, inside a big iron pot, of which the cover was screwed on with a high-temperature thermometer sealed in it, and which stood on the top of the stove 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?”