Blair smiled tiredly. "Me too. Hell, I'm fooling around with things I don't pretend to know anything about. Just enough to putter. Just enough to keep my mind off all-day-long. God knows what I'll get when I turn the damn thing on. Probably not even snow so I'm not worried. Turn left at the next stop-light--they've got that new cut-off finished." He started buttoning his coat. Grayson turned left as ordered. "But suppose it works?" "Wow. Then the steam-fitters would envy me." "Well it sure oughtta do something. You've been tinkering with it for--how long? Couple years?" "About four I guess, off and on. Sometimes I get to wondering what it'll do if it does do anything." "Show us Lillian Russell, maybe, or Little Egypt!" "There's a million possible results when you go fooling around with the structure of the universe, Carl. I guess that's what fascinates me. A little learning is a dangerous thing, they say. Dot's afraid I'll blow us up." "Well--she could have something there!" "The thing probably won't even toast a piece of bread. But I'd rather fool with it than collect buttons or play bridge or some other damfool thing, so...." The blue sedan sloshed up the puddled drive-way to the new nine-room bungalow and at the porch Doug Blair got out. A wind had sprung up and the dampness suddenly grasped his body, clung, as though he were naked. "Time for a drink, supper?" "No, thanks, Doug--gotta see a man. Now take it easy--let the state of the nation go bury its head for tonight and you have some fun blowing fuses!" "Yeah, yeah! O.K. and thanks." The blue sedan sloshed its way back to the highway, and Doug went into the house. * * * * * Douglas Blair kissed his wife and, as he did every time he kissed her, wondered how he'd been so lucky. He preferred to think as seldom as memory would permit of how close he'd come on a couple of occasions to marrying a country club, a bridge deck, a women's society, an Emily Post book. And when Dot had given him Terry and Mike, she'd topped off the miracle of herself with the added one of two healthy young minds that had already learned to say "prove it!" Some of the tiredness left him, a lot of the aching discouragement was brushed away. "Tired, Doug?" "I was." There was a sudden thundering which grew quickly into the crashing noises often made by wild elephants getting exercise in a native village. "The patter of little feet," Dorothy said. "Oh. For a minute I thought it was termites. Hi, fellas! What kind of trouble did we almost keep out of today?" "Hi, dad! Hey, Mike says you aren't ever going to try it out. You are, aren't you?" "I didn't say not ever. I said _maybe_ not ever. Things like the Contraption take years to develop, don't they, dad?" "Well," Doug said, doing what he could to stem the onslaught and still stay on his feet, "what's the source of all this wisdom, Mr. Scientist?" "Some day I'll be a scientist. Mommy said so, didn't you, mom?"