"You will be as well able to exhibit this as I shall when it is done, Rob, my son," Mr. Grey laughed, well pleased, as, her point cleared up, Roberta read on, pausing only at a word from her father. "Wait a moment, Rob; this isn't quite right." "Mark that with the blue pencil, Rob; I'll say that more briefly." "Slowly, Rob; my fingers won't move as fast as your tongue."
At last they were through, and Mr. Grey threw himself into his big chair with the shabby cushions, sighing contentedly.
"That's all right, Rob," he said. "Next autumn will see the machine completed—December at the latest, I hope. What a help you are, Rob, my son!"
"It's a comfort to hear you say that, like a sort of grace, every time we get through, Patergrey," said Rob. "But if I am a help to you, I wonder if I can get you to do something for me?"
"Yes, you know you can," said Mr. Grey, anticipating a request to be taken fishing, or to go for a long stroll in the twilight. But Rob, who would never allow anyone to insinuate that her father could accomplish more than he did, had other plans in her teeming brain. With a sensitive flush, fearing to wound her father, she said:
"Didn't you tell me, Patergrey, that a magazine had asked you to write a special article for it on something or other scientific, and offered you quite a sum of money if you'd do it?"
"Why, yes," said Mr. Grey, startled into animation by the unexpected question. "On fuels and means of heating and lighting in the future, and the world's storage of such fuel; they thought I should be prepared for such an article—as I am. Yes, they asked me—why?"
"Because dear Mardy is worried over present prospects; she lies awake planning, and can't see her way out—she told us so this morning," said Rob, bravely. "She says we must have an extra hundred dollars—and she has no idea where it can come from. We've used up the coal money—you know she divides her poor little pennies into piles for different things—and if we get coal late it will cost more, besides, how can we get it later any better than now? So I never said a word to the rest, but I thought of the article, and I made up my mind I'd get the dear daddy to put a wee bit of his cleverness on paper, and surprise the blessed Lady Grey by giving her her hundred—do you suppose it could be as much as that, Patergrey?"
"They offered me a hundred dollars for three thousand words," said her father, adding quickly, as Rob clapped her hands rapturously: "But it will take my mind off the invention, Rob, and I don't want to delay that a day. Something seems to impel me—compel me is better—to finish it as soon as I can, and anything that retards it is a mistake, my dear."