"I was not only aware of it, I told you about it," Donald answered.

"What in G.o.d's creation is this moldy brew?" he asked after taking a deep gulp from the lip of the pitcher and spitting most of it into the first ashtray he could reach.

"Lime martinis, like a daiquiri, only dryer. If you don't care for them you might refill my gla.s.s. That's right, you did tell me she didn't remember, but of course--"

"You didn't believe me," Donald finished for him. "Naturally. Look, Dr.

Quink, I think I'm a reasonable man. d.a.m.n it, I _know_ I am. I don't expect you to believe me right off the rat when I walk in and tell you--"

"Bat," Victor interrupted.

"I beg your pardon," Donald countered.

"Bat. Right off the. Not rat, right off the bat. It's a colloquialism, comes from baseball, that's a sport we play. Perhaps you haven't come across it, if you've only been here some eight months?"

"Yes, just about eight months. I've heard of the sport, of course, but haven't gone to see a game yet. Do you think it's worth my while?"

"Probably not. Strictly a partisan sport."

"Yes, I see your point. Not an idiom, you wouldn't say?"

"No, definitely not," Victor said. "Takes time to make an idiom, but only G.o.d can make a tree. O Lord, I better have another martini. Would you pour, I think I might miss. Still, a colloquialism, not a doubt about it. The expression hasn't lasted to your day, I take it? If it had, then it might be an idiom. Might, I say, only might. I promise nothing."

"And quite right you are," Donald said. "Still, I want you to understand that I don't expect you to believe me right off the bat when I wander into your busy little office and tell you--by the way, what is your receptionist doing always staring at the floor right next to her desk?"

"She's in love. He's an advertising man."

"Oh, well yes, of course. When I tell you I come from the future.

Obviously you're not going to accept that right off the rat, as I say. I mean, no one could expect you to. However, after talking at length to me in your office and then holding a private conversation with my wife, you should, I think, as a trained and highly competent psychiatrist, certainly the foremost of your day--"

At this point Victor had waved a deprecating hand.

"Please allow me to say that I am certainly a better judge of your position in this world than you could possibly be. Seeing it in the proper perspective, I mean. I did not intend to compliment you when I described you as I just did, I merely state a fact already known to my confreres. Then you should, as I say, under these most favorable circ.u.mstances, and certainly being forewarned, then you should be able to tell who is suffering from a delusion and who is not. Apart from what the delusion is, and whether or not you choose to believe in it, simply studying the behavior of the people involved, you should be able to tell who is acting normally and who is not."

"I agree with you in every particular," Victor said. "I certainly should. And I think I can, and have. In point of fact--"

"Dinner is ready," Mimi said. "And no shop talk, please. I want you to taste my squash and applesauce piece. And no one, absolutely _no_ one, comes into my dining room with a stinking black cigar."

"Could it be Galilililu?" Donald murmured. "d.a.m.n."

"This is excellent," Victor said. "How do you make it?"

"Why, thank you," Mimi replied. "It's very simple. You just take the squash and then pour in the applesauce and cinnamon."

"There must be more to it than that," Victor insisted, smiling around a mouthful.

"Of course there is," she said. "But I'm not telling you all my secrets.

You'll have to come back if you want it again."

"d.a.m.n it," said Donald, "stop jibber-jabbering! We know why we're here, so let's talk about it. Can you cure my crazy wife?"

"Donald!" Mimi spluttered.

"Now, Mr. Fairfield," Victor said, "let's not be unfair. Your wife has amnesia, but she's not crazy. As a matter of fact, psychiatrists no longer recognize the term as such--"

"Pa.s.s the roast," Donald said. "Do you think _I'm_ crazy or don't you?"

"I most certainly do not!"

"Do you think I was born in the future?"

"Mr. Fairfield, talking like this isn't getting us anywhere. Now Mimi--I'm sorry, Mrs. Fairfield--doesn't remember anything previous to that train ride we were talking about...."

"Naturally," Donald said. "That's when we got here. We'll skip the technicalities, but it's always easier to land on something that's moving. Standard procedure. I don't really understand it myself, but I'm no engineer. We landed in the twentieth century--is it the twentieth or the twenty-first?"

"The twentieth," Victor a.s.sured him.

"Isn't that silly of me. I'm always getting mixed up. It doesn't make much difference, though, you know. Not much of a change from one to the other. Not like the nineteenth and twentieth, nothing like that at all.

Do you ever find yourself wondering if it's the twentieth of the month or the twenty-first?"

"I have a calendar on my desk."

"Oh," Donald mused. "I didn't notice it." He stared intently at Victor Quink while he munched his celery. "It's not hard to see why you've risen to the top of your profession. Calendar on your desk, eh?" He looked at his wife and tapped the side of his head significantly.

"You landed aboard this train some eight months ago," Dr. Quink prompted. "What are you doing here, anyhow? Are you an historian?"

"Nonsense," he replied at once. "Haven't you noticed all the books you people are writing? Every one of your presidents, every general, every field-marshal, every scientist, manufacturer, tennis star, and juvenile delinquent has written a book, or at least a serial for the _Post_. No reason at all for any historian to come back to this particular age. No other age in all history, I might add, has been so fond of itself or so cognizant of the need for preserving itself and its records for posterity as has yours. And with very little reason. But of course that last is only a personal observation, and I may be prejudiced, having lived here, so to speak, for these past months. You get to see the seamy side of a civilization, you know, when you live there yourself.

Incidentally, would you be interested to know how your age has been cla.s.sified by posterity? Of course you would, silly of me to ask. Well, to get on with it, you know how historians are always _naming_ periods, and groups, and whatever. The Age of Darkness, you remember, then the Age of Awakening, the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, et cetera? As it turns out, you've come down to us as the Age of Verbiage.

Amusing, eh? No? Well, you can't please everybody. I thought it was cute. But in answer to your question I'll have to say no, I'm just a tourist. I'm on vacation. Nothing more sensational than that, I'm afraid."

"And naturally you took your wife with you," Victor added.

Donald looked down at his plate for just a moment or two, then answered "naturally," without raising his eyes at all.

"Somehow, Mr. Fairfield," Victor said, "somehow I get the feeling you're holding out on me, you're not telling me all."

"d.a.m.n it, the more I tell you the less you believe. I never should have told you the truth at all. I should have just said my wife's suffering from amnesia and let it go at that."

"I'm not an engineer either," Victor answered. "I can't just twist a screw and restore the proper functioning of the memory mechanism. I've got to know the whole truth, Mr. Fairfield, the whole truth."

"How come my wife is Mimi and I'm Mr. Fairfield?"