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Thanks, sunray and malone.

Malone, now I am confused.

25a is the old 1a which must be made contemporary.
I thought 25a is without definition.
I canot parse the clue in 25a yet.

The extra letters give the object which went through the change.
And that object was T??? O?? B?????.

How long are the two words for replacement?

The first object was 4,2,7. The new object is 8,5.

Orson, glad I could help.

Thanks malone.
Finally the brain cells worked. Went back to the story and read a few lines and realized what the first word should be. Second was obvious.

Another way to do this would have been to find out what letter changes work. In some cases only one letter works. Those give enough of a hint.

Glad you got there, Sunray!

Finally got it. And only after googling the four words made by the extra letters. Never heard that version, although I knew the one about the old axe. Didn't know this was an old/famous 1 across. As Kirky said much earlier, very clever.