"Why, here I am married, my work interrupted and you chatter about--Oh, all right. Here's the money." The professor tore his checkbook out and hastily scribbled on a blank. "Here you are. Satisfied?" McCarthy puzzled over the check. "This isn't like t'other. This is on a different bank--The Cotton Growers Exchange." "That makes no important difference," the professor told him hastily, bundling him into the time machine. "It's a check, isn't it? Just as good, believe me, just as good." As the little man fiddled with dials and adjusted switches, he called over his shoulder. "Remember, get that rock as close to its original position as you can. And touch nothing else, do nothing else." "I know. I know. Hey, prof, how come I remember all these changes and you don't, with all your science and all?" "Simple," the professor told him, toddling briskly out of the machine. "By being in the past and the time machine while these temporal adjustments to your act made themselves felt, you were in a sense insulated against them, just as a pilot suffers no direct, personal damage from the bomb his plane releases over a city. Now, I've set the machine to return to approximately the same moment as before. Unfortunately, my chronotransit calibrations can never be sufficiently exact--Do you remember how to operate the apparatus? If you don't--" McCarthy sighed and depressed the lever, shutting the door on the professor's flowing explanations and perspiring bald head. * * * * * He was back by the pounding surf off the little island. He paused for a moment, before opening the door as he caught sight of a strange transparent object just a little further up the beach. Another time machine--and exactly like his! "Oh, well. The professor will explain it!" He started up the beach toward the rock. Then he stopped again--a dead-stop this time. The rock lay ahead, as he remembered it before the shifting. But there was a man straining at it, _a tall, thin man in a turtleneck sweater and brown, corduroy pants_. McCarthy got his flapping jaw back under control. "Hey! Hey, you at the rock! Don't move it. It's not supposed to be moved!" He hurried over. The stranger turned. He had the ugliest face McCarthy remembered having seen on a human being; his neck was ridiculously long and thin. He examined McCarthy slowly. He reached into his pocket and came out with a soiled package. He bit off a chaw of tobacco. McCarthy reached into his pocket and came up with an identically soiled mass of tobacco. He also took a bite. They chewed and stared at each other. Then they spat, simultaneously. "What do you mean this rock ain't supposed to be moved? Professor Ruddle told me to move it." "Well, Professor Ruddle told me _not_ to move it. _And_ Professor Guggles," McCarthy added as a triumphant clincher.