Hamilton was a little at a loss as to how to handle him. It was utterly inurbane to display interest in a stranger's personal affairs, dangerous, if the stranger were an armed citizen. But this lad seemed to invite friendly interest. "What is troubling you, sir?"
"Well, lots of things, hard to define. Everything is different."
"Didn't you expect things to be different?"
"I didn't expect anything. I didn't expect to come to ... to now."
"Eh? I understand that-never mind. Do you mean that you did not know that you were entering the 'stasis'?"
"I did and I didn't."
"What do you mean?"
"Well... Listen, do you think you could stand a long story? I've told this story about forty-eleven times, and I know it doesn't do any good to try to shorten it. They just don't understand."
"Go ahead."
"Well, I'd better go back a little. I graduated from Eastern U in the spring of '26 and-"
"You what?"
"Oh, dear! You see in those days the schools-"
"Sorry. Just tell it your own way. Anything I can't pick up I'll ask you about later."
"Maybe that would be better. I had a pretty good job offered to me, selling bonds-one of the best houses on the Street. I was pretty well known-All-American back two seasons." Hamilton restrained himself, and made about four mental notes.
"That's an athletic honor, " Smith explained hastily. "You'll understand. I don't want you to think I was a football bum, though. To be sure the fraternity helped me a little, but I worked for every cent I got. Worked summers, too. And I studied. My major was Efficiency Engineering. I had a pretty thorough education in business, finance, economics, salesmanship. It's true that I got my job because Grantland Rice picked me-I mean football helped a lot to make me well known-but I was prepared to be an asset to any firm that hired me. You see that, don't you?"
"Oh, most certainly!"
"It's important, because it has a bearing on what happened afterwards. I wasn't working on my second million but I was getting along. Things were slick enough. The night it happened I was celebrating a little-with reason. I had unloaded an allotment of South American Republics-"
"Eh?"
"Bonds. It seemed like a good time to throw a party. It was a Saturday night, so everybody started out with the dinner-dance at the country club. It was the usual thing. I looked over the flappers for a while, didn't see one I wanted to dance with, and wandered into the locker room, looking for a drink. The attendant used to sell it to people he could trust."
"Which reminds me, " said Hamilton, and returned a moment later with glasses and refreshment.
"Thanks. His gin was pure bathtub, but usually reliable. Maybe it wasn't, that night. Or maybe I should have eaten dinner. Anyhow, I found myself listening to an argument that was going on in one end of the room. One of these parlor bolsheviks was holding forth-maybe you still have the type? Attack anything, just so long as it was respectable and decent."
Hamilton smiled.
"You do, eh? He was one of 'em. Read nothing but the American Mercury and Jurgen and then knew it all. I'm not narrow-minded. I read those things, too, but I didn't have to believe 'em. I read the Literary Digest, too, and the Times, something they would never do. To get on, he was panning the Administration and predicting that the whole country was about to go to the bow-wows... go to pieces. He didn't like the Gold Standard, he didn't like Wall Street, he thought we ought to write off the War Debts.
"I could see that some of our better members were getting pretty sick of it, so I jumped in. "They hired the money, didn't they, ' I told him.
"He grinned at me-sneered I should say. 'I suppose you voted for him.'
"'I certainly did, ' I answered, which was not strictly true; I hadn't gotten around to registering, such things coming in the middle of the football season. But I wasn't going to let him get away with sneering at Mr. Coolidge. 'I suppose you voted for Davis.'
"'Not likely, ' he says. 'I voted for Norman Thomas. '
"Well, that burned me up. 'See here, ' I said, 'the proper place for people like you is in Red Russia. You're probably an atheist, to boot. You have the advantage of living in the greater period in the history of the greatest country in history. We've got an Administration in Washington that understands business. We're back to normalcy and we're going to stay that way. We don't need you rocking the boat. We are levelled off on a plateau of permanent prosperity. Take it from me-Don't Sell America Short!'" I got quite a burst of applause.
"'You seem pretty sure of that,' he says, weakly.
"'I ought to be,' I told him. 'I'm in the Street. '
"'Then there is no point in me arguing,' he said, and just walked out.
"Somebody poured me another drink, and we got to talking. He was a pleasant, portly chap, looking like a banker or a broker. I didn't recognize him, but I believe in establishing contacts. 'Let me introduce myself, ' he said. 'My name is Thadeus Johnson.'
"I told him mine."
"'Well, Mr. Smith, ' he said, 'you seem to have confidence in the future of our country.'
"I told him I certainly did.
"'Confident enough to bet on it?'
"'At any odds you want to name, money, marbles, or chalk.'
"'Then I have a proposition that might interest you. '
"I pricked up my ears. 'What is it?' I said.
"'Could you take a little joyride with me?' he said. 'Between the saxophones and those Charleston-crazy kids, a man can't hear himself think.' I didn't mind-those things don't break up until 3 A. M.; I knew I could stand a spell of fresh air. He had a long, low wicked-looking Hispano-Suiza. Class.
"I must have dozed off. I woke up when we stopped at his place. He took me in and fixed me a drink and told me about the stasis-only he called it a 'level-entropy field. ' And he showed it to me. He did a lot of stunts with it, put a cat in it, left it in while we killed a drink. It was all right.
"'But that isn't the half of it, ' he said. 'Watch. ' He took the cat and threw it, right through where the field would be if it was turned on. When the cat was right spang in the center of the area, he threw the switch. We waited again, a little longer this time. Then he released the switch. The cat came sailing out, just the way it was heading when we saw it last. It landed, spitting and swearing.
"'That was just to convince you, ' he said, 'that inside that field, time doesn't exist-no increase of entropy. The cat never knew the field was turned on. '
"Then he changed his tack. "Jack, " he says, 'what will the country be like in twenty-five years?'
"I thought about it. 'The same-only more so,' I decided.
"'Think A. T. & T. will still be a good investment?'
"'Certainly!'
"'Jack, ' he says softly, "would you enter that field for ten shares of A. T. & T. ?',
"'For how long?'
"'Twenty-five years, Jack.'
"Naturally, it takes a little time to decide a thing like that. Ten of A.T. & T. didn't tempt me; he added ten of U. S. Steel. And he laid 'em out on the table. I was as sure as I'm standing here that the stock would be worth a lot more in a quarter of a century, and a kid fresh out of college doesn't get blue chips to play with very easily. But a quarter of a century! It was like dying. When he added ten of National City, I said, 'Look Mr. Johnson, let me try it for five minutes. If it didn't kill the cat, I ought to be able to hold my breath that long.'
"He had been filling out the assignments in my name, just to tempt me. He said, 'Surely, Jack.' I stepped to the proper spot on the floor while I still had my courage up. I saw him reach for the switch.
"That's all I know."
Hamilton Felix sat up suddenly. "Huh? How's that?"
"That's all I know," repeated Smith. "I started to tell him to go ahead, when I realized he wasn't there any more. The room was filled with strangers, it was a different room. I was here. I was now."
"That," said Hamilton, "deserves another drink."
They drank it in silence.