"It is a lesson," I promised her. "I swear I will never pay any tradesman every cent I owe him so long as I live!" * * * * * And then, finally, the last stud had been pressed, the last instruction given and taken. And for the final time our two ships were hovering in the gray mists which are above Time's passageways, and our two pilots were preparing for the move which they seemed to believe would solve our difficulty. And Hank Number 2 said, "You've got it straight, now, Hank! You sit perfectly still. I'll guide my machine into yours, an' at the moment of impact, you and I will both press our temporal landin' studs--right?" "Right!" said our Hank. "I guess it's the oney way to do it, huh?" "Oney way I c'n see. We got to make a merger--" "A _what_?" I yelled, sitting bolt upright. Hank said, "Now, ca'm down, Jim. Me'n me figgered this all out, an' it's the oney way we can get back to normal. You see, we an' ourselves in the other ship is almost identical. Within five minutes or so of each other we got the same brains, mem'ries an' bodies. "It's absolutely impossible for us here in this car to ever get back to _exactly_ the sitchyation we left. Because under them circumstances, the ship wasn't never completed. "So we got to do the next best thing. That is, we got to merge with ourselves an' become the same person again except that we will never have made this trip? Get it?" "If I do," I howled wildly, "I'm crazy--and if I don't, I'm crazy anyhow. I lose whether I win or lose. But if you think I'm going to become part of that silly-looking ape over there--" The other me was howling with equal frenzy. "Silly-looking ape yourself! Let me out of here, Hank! I'm not going to let _him_ be part of _me_--" And the two Helens were squawking, too. Neither of them entirely fancied the other. Now both began yammering at the same time. The two Hanks looked at each other. And our Hank said, "Now?" "_Now!_" said the other Hank. I saw the two machines drifting together. I cried aloud. I felt the hulls contact ... then there came a moment of brilliant dizziness ... a jolting sense of concussion ... and a prickling sense of motion.... Helen eyed with disdain the wavering, nebulous egg-shaped machine standing before us. "And what," she demanded, "do you call _this_?" "It--it's a time-machine, honey," said Hank. Then a strange look dawned in his eyes. "Hey!" he said. "Hey--_it worked_!" * * * * *