The smile was enough to knock me silly, but the stuff coming out of the metal box was helping. I felt the familiar sensations. My head felt light and I was getting dizzy.
I tightened my arm around Sally’s shoulder and then that big black tunnel opened up. And in I fell.
I CAME to first this time. The professor and Sally were lying on the floor beside me, and my heart pumped with relief when I saw that we were back in their dingy apartment.
I picked Sally up in my arms and put her in a chair, and she came around pretty quickly. She gave a relieved sigh when she saw where she was.
The professor was stirring and he opened his eyes. He scrambled to his feet and picked up the metal box, which had been lying beside him. He put it away carefully in the desk drawer.
My mind was full of ideas.
“Now look, professor,” I said, “have you ever thought of the money you could make with this thing? Why there’s millions in it! You could just sell the patents and retire for life. Or you could handle it yourself. Either way, you can’t lose.
“Why you could start a time-travel bureau. Send people back into the past on vacations.”
He shuddered. “I don’t want to do anything like that. I just want to work on my theories. I’m afraid I’m no business man, my boy.”
“But listen,” I pleaded. “You could make a fortune and then use the money to continue your research.”
He smiled wanly. “Perhaps you’re right. But I’m an old man and I don’t have the enthusiasm of youth. It would take money to get started. And I’m too old to go to work. I’m afraid I’ll just go along the way I am.”
“Sally!” I said, turning to her. “Can’t you make him listen to reason? This is too good a chance to throw away. I have a little money left and I’d be glad to help out. I was going to buy a chicken farm, but . . .”
“No!” Sally said firmly. She shook her small head emphatically. “Your money goes for the chicken farm! I won’t have you throwing it away on father’s ideas.”
“I won’t be throwing it away,” I yelled. I was beginning to get annoyed with both of them. I had never met such short-sighted people. “Let’s call it a loan. Or give me ten per cent of the stock.”
It was a hard fight but I finally swung them around. The professor agreed to take a thousand dollars of mine, but he insisted on making it a fifty-fifty proposition. It was a steal, but I couldn’t talk him out of it.
I was afraid they might change their minds so I went and got the money the minute they agreed.
The professor looked at the cash as if he’d never seen that much money in one piece in his life. He was like a little kid with a new red wagon.
Sally threw her arms around my neck and kissed me and then she started to blush.
“I don’t know what you must think of me,” she said.
“You’d slap my face if you knew,” I grinned.
She laughed as if I was kidding.
They both had things to do then, so I made a date with Sally for that night, and left. I spent half the day walking through the park and smelling the flowers. I kept thinking about Sally. I felt warm and happy.
AT SIX o’clock I went back to my room, took a bath and used my after shave lotion all over, just so I’d smell nice. Then I dressed, put on a new tie and went out into the street.
I bought a big bouquet of flowers and by seven o’clock I was punching the door of her boarding house.
The woman in the white apron opened the door.
I started in but she held up her hand.
“And where are you going?” she asked.
“To see Miss Sally O’Neill,” I said.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but my mother taught me to be polite to old folks.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You think you are!” she said. “She and that old man of her skipped out.”
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“Crazy, am I?” They left owing me a month’s rent, the dirty chiselers.”
I didn’t listen for anymore. I went up the stairs two at a time. The door of their room was open so I barged right in. I didn’t see anybody in the front room, so I went into the next room, a small bedroom. The closets were empty. The drawers of the bureau were empty.
There was nobody home.
I came back into the front room and my heart was as heavy as an Irishman’s hangover. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was too sad and confused to think I couldn’t understand it. Why would they skip out?
I walked over to the desk and jerked open the drawer. The metal box was still there. I looked at it. There was no bottom on it and all that was inside was a few wires and coils that looked like a Rube Goldberg invention.
I couldn’t understand why the professor had left his time machine.
Still carrying it in my hand I went slowly down the stairs. The landlady was standing at the bottom, a satisfied smirk on her face.
“Now, who’s crazy?” she said.
“They must have left a message,” I said.
“They left nothing,” she snapped. “They were just deadbeats. I should have known better than to trust them. Now I’ve got work to do.”
I noticed something then. My nose twitched. There was a faint smell of smouldering tar in the air.
I looked at the old hag of a landlady and horrible suspicion burst into my honest Irish head. I looked at the big bouquet in my left hand and the time machine in my right, and the horrible suspicion kept growing.
“Where’s the basement?” I yelled at the old woman.
“Have you lost your senses?” she cried. “I’ll call the police if you don’t get along.”
“You won’t be calling the police,” I said.
I turned and walked toward the back of the house, with her following and making an ungodly racket. I found a door that led to steps that went down. And I went down. The smell of tar was stronger.
AT THE bottom I found a light switch. I flicked it on. I was in a boiler room. The old crone was right behind me, screaming unprintable things in my ears.
“Silence hag!” I shouted.
I walked across the boiler room to another door. I pulled it open and saw a heavy piece of silk hanging there with a slit cut in.
I looked at the woman. She wasn’t talking now. She was just looking scared.
I pushed through the silk into a room I’d seen before. The floor was dirt, the walls were covered with silk, and there was a big couch in the middle. There was also a moth eaten tiger skin on the floor. I looked at the woman and I was seeing her in bright clothes with phony silver and gold clips.
I threw the bouquet on the floor and jumped on it. Then I tried to pull my hair out.
“Schemers, cheaters, swindlers!” I bellowed.
I was so mad I hurt. I saw it all now. I turned and glared at the old crone.
“They knock me out with a pill in my coffee. “They bring me down here and tell me I’m in Egypt. You come in pretending to be an Egyptian and . . .”
I couldn’t go on. It was too mortifying.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” the old crone mumbled. “I thought it was a practical joke.”
“My thousand dollars!” I cried.
I grabbed her by the head of the hair and lifted her until she was standing on her toes.
“Woman,” I said sternly. “Where did they go? Don’t lie! I am just back from Europe where we shot the German women from our cannons for sport.”
Her eyes rolled wildly and then she started talking. I got an address from her, and then I let her go.
I paused just long enough to kick the bouquet once more and then I left.
I STILL had the time machine. And I had an idea. Not a simple idea, or an easy idea, but an Irish idea, full of imagination and cunning.
The arrangements took me several hours. I called a half dozen of the boys who’d followed me around Europe and they all thought I was either drunk or crazy. Or both. But they all agreed to help
.
And I had other arrangements to make, and they were still harder. But finally everything was done and I hopped into a cab and headed for the address the landlady had given me.
This house was just as beat-up as the one they’d had in the lower thirties. It was a two story building with dirty brick front. I paid the driver and went into the vestibule.
There were two bells there and I punched the one that didn’t have a name-card under it. I figured they wouldn’t have had the time to get their name up yet.
The buzzer sounded and I pulled open the door and started up the steps.
A voice called down, “who is it?”
The voice was Sally’s. It still sent shivers up my back.
“Did you forget we had a date tonight, darlin’ ?” I answered.
I heard a gasp and then I turned the corner of the stairs and there she was, looking down at me like I was a ghost.
Her legs were just at the level of my eyes so I didn’t notice the expression on her face.
“Paddy,” she said weakly, “we were just talking about you.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “And how is the professor?”
I was standing beside her then and she still hadn’t moved.
She just stared at me, white-faced and scared.
I put a hand under her arm and said, “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
“Of—of course, Paddy,” she said. We went into a room that wasn’t very pleasant. The professor was reading a paper, and when he saw me, I thought he was going to choke.
But I didn’t give either of ’em a chance to talk. I just smiled and took a seat.
“I’ve been worryin’ all day about whether a thousand dollars was going to be enough,” I said. “So I brought along some more just in case.” I smiled cheerfully. “The landlady told me where you’d, gone. I can understand that you’d want to get away by yourself so you can work on the time machine.”
“Yes, that was it,” the professor spluttered. “I—I felt I’d work faster, off by myself. And Sally decided to come and help me.”
“Sure,” I said.
I opened the box which I had in my hand and took out the time machine. “But I couldn’t understand why you left this. So I brought it along. And you know what?” I smiled brightly at both of them, as they shook their heads slowly. “We’re going to take a little trip. Right now.”
“Trip,” the professor said weakly. “Where?”
“Back into time,” I said sweetly. “Are you ready?”
“Well,” the professor coughed, “I don’t know but what . . .”
“Fine,” I said.
“Paddy,” Sally said miserably, “we know you must hate us, but do you have to go through all this? Can’t you make it short and clean?”
“But darlin’,” I protested, “why should I hate you? I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. We’re just going to take a little trip. And first I’m going to make a coffee.” I smiled again at both of them. They must have been awfully sick of that smile. “And you two just wait right here.”
I WENT out in the kitchen and heated the coffee that was still in the pot. Then I put the sleeping powder I’d bought at the drug store in two of the cups.
I gave one of those to the Professor and one to Sally.
“Drink up and we’ll be off,” I said.
They drank the coffee while I set up the time machine. Then I made them put their hands on the hand-grips, and all the while I kept smiling and chattering.
The powders didn’t take long to work. The professor started nodding almost immediately, and within a minute his head had fallen to his chest and he was snoring quietly.
“What have you done to him?” Sally cried indignantly.
“I put a finger to my lips. “The stimulus is working,” I whispered.
“You beast! You . . .” She stopped with mouth open and then widened it to a deep yawn. “I feel sleepy,” she said. “I don’t know what it is, but . . .” She yawned again and then she was sleeping. She looked lovelier than ever asleep.
I picked her up and slung her over my shoulder. I grabbed the time machine with my free hand and went down the stairs. The car was waiting at the curb. I put Sally in the back and got in beside her.
The driver, Dilly Jones, a good lad who got his Purple Heart the same day I got mine, looked back at me dubiously.
“This is serious business, Paddy,” he said. “I hope you know what you’re doin’.”
“Drive on, Dilly,” I ordered. “Everything is under control.”
He drove on. It had started to rain, and an occasional flash of heat lightning streaked across the dark sky.
We drove across the bridge into Brooklyn and then about twenty more miles, until we hit the country. He pulled the car off the road into a grove of trees. There wasn’t a house in sight.
I picked Sally up again and carried her about a hundred yards from the car. I put her down on the soggy ground underneath a spreading tree and I laid down beside her. All you could see from there was trees and rain and tangled underbrush. The lightning was flashing regularly now, and thunder was booming on the horizon.
I placed the time machine carefully between us and then I waited for Sally to wake up. The rain helped. When I saw her eyes blinking I closed mine.
A minute later I heard her cry out and then she was tugging frantically at my shoulder. I blinked a little bit and then sat up, a great look of surprise on my face.
“Imagine this,” I said.
“Paddy,” she cried, “where are we?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “Looks like the time machine really worked.”
She was wet and miserable. She snuggled up to me like a half-drowned kitten. “Take me out of here,” she said miserably. “I’m licked, Paddy.”
“I wish I could,” I said. I said, “What’s that?” and pointed off toward the trees.
She looked to where I pointed and gave a little cry. “Paddy, what are they?”
SIX or eight half-naked men came toward us from the trees. They were plastered with mud and carried clubs in their hands.
“Be brave,” I said. “I recognize them. They are the original members of the old Druid clan, a notorious sect that flourished in Ireland centuries ago.”
She whimpered and crept closer to me.
The leader of the little group was a powerfully built young man, whose name was Terrance O’Toole. He had driven a tank with great success in Belgium and Germany. He was my best buddy. But now he did look like a druid. Mud was plastered in his hair and over his body, and he was scowling ferociously.
He pointed the club at me and made noises in his throat. I made noises back at him.
“What did he say?” Sally whimpered.
“It looks bad,” I said. “I just happen to be able to speak his dialect. These people have a horrible religion. They burn maidens to appease their blood-thirsty god.”
“Maidens?” she quavered.
Terrence grunted some more at me and I grunted back.
“Not so good,” I whispered to Sally. “He asked me if we were married.”
“Did you tell him we were?” she cried.
I shook my head sorrowfully. “I couldn’t tell a big fib like that. I had to tell him the truth darlin’.”
Terrence turned to the six men standing behind him and grinned hideously. Then he pointed his club at Sally and leered.
She clutched my arm. “Paddy,” she pleaded! “Tell them we’re married. Please!”
“I won’t lie,” I said firmly. “But I can fix it so I won’t have to lie. Will you marry me?”
“Oh, Paddy,” she wailed. “Anything!”
I raised my hand in a signal and two more of my buddies appeared, dragging a wet, indignant, but legal Justice of the Peace between them.
“It just so happens,” I said, “that we have here one of their priests. He can marry us.”
And he did. He fumed and ranted and threatened to sue us all f
or abduction, burglary, and forcible entry, but in the end he married us.
Then my gang disappeared.
I looked down at Sally. She was smiling expectantly at me, and there was a funny glint in her eye that made me suspicious.
“Weren’t you fooled?” I asked.
“Not for long,” she grinned. She pointed to a sign tacked on the tree. It read: No Hunting Allowed!
“I,” she said, “saw that when I woke up. But I liked the way things were going, so I just kept quiet.”
I picked up the time machine and put one of her hands on the hand-grip, and I took the other.
“This is the way it started,” I said.
I kissed her then, and it was wonderful.
I started to kiss her again, but something happened. Light flared suddenly about us, and a streaking bolt of lightning shot between us. My hand burned, and I felt the hand-grip of the time machine growing hotter and hotter.
Sally screamed and I reached for her, but I never made it.
A black tunnel was opened up in front of me. And I was falling in. And it had no end.
I WOKE with my arm around Sally.
She was awake too, and looking about with a dazed expression on her face.
We were seated on a park bench and the sun was streaming into our faces. People were passing by and they glanced at us strangely.
The men were wearing four-buttoned suits, with high celluloid collars and the women wore long dresses, with big feathered hats.
There were more carriages than automobiles moving along the broad avenue which we were facing. And the automobiles that did pass were without tops, and they coughed and sputtered asthmatically. The drivers wore goggles and long white, ankle-length coats.
I looked at Sally and she looked at me.
“Is this another gag?”
We both said it simultaneously.
Then we both shook our heads wordlessly.
This wasn’t a gag.
“The time machine worked,” I said hoarsely. “We are back in the past. When that lightning bolt hit it, something happened.”
“Oh, Paddy,” she said, “what’ll we do new?”
Music was coming from down the street and I heard a sound that does to me what a fire bell does to an old fire horse.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 240