"I should like you to have a real, old-fashioned, glorious Christmas, my
boy, such as you had when you were smaller, before we left the house
where you were born."

"Oh well, you mustn't worry about me, father; if there's plenty of
turkey and ice-cream and the cream-cakes, I can stand it. Mother can't
come, anyhow, so that's settled, and it's no use to think about it. But
the motor--that's different. There's hope, anyway. The wheel may go
round. If you didn't hope so, you wouldn't go on fussing over it, would
you? You'd go and do something else. They always say hope's better than
nothing."

"It's about all we shall have left for Christmas, so we may as well
build as much on it as we can."

"I love building," said Newton. "I like to stand and watch a bricklayer
just putting one brick on another and making the wall grow."

"Perhaps you'll turn out an architect."

"I'd like to. I never showed you my city, did I?" He knew very well that
he had not, and his father looked at him inquiringly. "No. Oh well, you
won't care to see it."

"Yes, I should! But I don't understand. What sort of a city do you
mean?"

"Oh, it's nothing," answered the boy, affecting carelessness. "It's only
a little paper city on a board. I don't believe you'd care to see it,