He heard Rosie gasp, all the way down there in the banged-up telephone truck. Sam had seen the self-evident, at last, and now, in the twelfth of July, he was talking to himself on the telephone. Only instead of talking to himself in the week after next, he was talking to himself in the week before last--he being, back there ten days before, working on this very same telephone line on this very same pole. And it was the same conversation, word for word. * * * * * When he came down the pole, rather expansively, Rosie grabbed him and wept. "Oh, Sam!" she sobbed. "It was you all the time!" "Yeah," said Sam complacently. "I figured it out last night. That me back there in the second of July, he's cussing me out. And he's going to tell you about it and you're going to get all wrought up. But I can make that dumb me back yonder do what has to be done. And you and me, Rosie, have got a lot of money coming to us. I'm going to carry on through so he'll earn it for us. But I'm warning you, Rosie, he'll be back at my house waiting for me to talk to him tonight, and I've got to be home to tell him to go over to your house. I'm goin' to say 'ha-ha, ha-ha' at him." "A-all right," said Rosie, wide-eyed. "You can." "But I remember that when I call me up tonight, back there ten days ago, I'm going to be right busy here and now. I'm going to make me mad, because I don't want to waste time talking to myself back yonder. Remember? Now what," asked Sam mildly, "would I be doing tonight that would make me not want to waste time talking to myself ten days ago? You got any ideas, Rosie?" "Sam Yoder! I wouldn't! I never heard of such a thing!" Sam looked at her and shook his head regretfully. "Too bad. If you won't, I guess I've got to call me up in the week after next and find out what's cooking." "You--you _shan't_!" said Rosie fiercely. "I'll get even with you! But you shan't talk to that--" Then she wailed. "Darn you, Sam! Even if I do have to marry you so you'll be wanting to talk to me instead of that dumb you ten days back, you're not going to--you're not--" Sam grinned. He kissed her. He put her in the truck and they rode off to Batesville to get married. And they did. But you're not supposed to believe all this, and if you ask Sam Yoder about it, he's apt to say it's all a lie. He doesn't want to talk about private party lines, either. And there are other matters. For instance, Sam's getting to be a pretty prominent citizen these days. He makes a lot of money, one way and another. Nobody around home will ever bet with him on who's going to win at sports and elections, anyhow. End of Project Gutenberg's Sam, This is You, by William Fitzgerald Jenkins