“I don’t see how I ever can, Hulda. And there won’t be anything for you to eat—nothing you’d like at all. It’s too bad, isn’t it? You’ve been so good to me, Hulda.” A strange convulsion twitched the honest Swedish face and a couple of large-sized tears went sliding down her cheeks, upon realizing which, she bolted out of the room. Haworth went down into the shop. Not to work; that was impossible—impossible even if the power current hadn’t been shut off. He stood for half an hour gazing vacantly down the long room with the lathes and heavier machines lined along one side, the dead power shaft above them, and the bench with vises and tool racks and the lighter machines along the other. Hulda and the cook left four days later, the former making spasmodic swipes across the upper part of her face with a bunched-up handkerchief as she stood near the taxi waiting for them to bring down her trunks. Nothing, however, would induce old Mrs. Temple to budge. Haworth’s earnest pleading (on her behalf) that not only would he have no money for her wages, but nothing wherewith to buy food for her, made no impression on the old woman. She announced that she was a-goin’ to come in an’ see to him an’ he might just as well make up his mind to it. Wages wasn’t no consequence; he could pay her later when he was doin’ well with his inventions. A compromise was finally reached. She was to come in once in a while to put things to rights, but you may as well know now that the said “once in a while” eventually developed into twice in a while and then to three times a week; later still, as you will see, to the old woman remaining in the house night and day as long as she was able to manage it. * * * * * Three months had passed since the baby was born, and Edith hadn’t regained her strength. It was absolutely necessary that she should have proper care and nourishment. The doctor continued to visit her at intervals and insisted on the importance of having the nurse remain with her. So far Haworth had been able to manage these things, but he was now close upon the end of his resources, and as time went on his anxiety became appalling. He had been to a number of machine shops and manufacturing establishments and applied for work. At two places he got a chance to try, but in neither did he last more than three days. It wasn’t the trouble of earlier years—inability to hold his mind concentrated on work that was deadly and meaningless repetition. With the tremendous incentive he had and the absence of interfering inventive ideas, he could have done it. But with his marvelous mechanical knowledge he couldn’t compete in cheap rapidity with a boob they might pick up in the street. What he did he must do carefully and well. That lifelong habit was absolutely unbreakable, and it unfitted him for modern work. It took time. That wouldn’t do.