"All right. You've aroused my interest. Now tell me just how your time machine can help me." Cavendish winced. "Please, Mr. Johnson, I do not have a time machine." "You just said you can send me back through time." "In effect, Sir; in effect. Physically, no. My machine--temporal transgressor I call it, for want of a better term--my machine has the faculty of liberating a certain part of the human id, the conscience, the soul, if you please, and casting it adrift on the broad temporal stream. A strong will can direct this liberated 'something' against the general drift of the temporal stream, forcing it backwards against the natural current. Back through time, as it were." "And just how does this help me?" "From the limited experiments I have been able to perform with available funds, I have found that, shall we say from now on, for simplicity's sake, the Id, tends to gravitate to early versions of itself. Apparently there is some sort of force that binds the Id with itself. At moments of crisis, this force is strongest." "And you want me to be a guinea pig for your experiments." "Crudely put, Sir." "But the truth." Cavendish shrugged. "Consider the benefits to be reaped." "As yet, I have seen none," said Johnson, bluntly. "Suppose you enlighten me some more." "Opportunities...." "We covered that before." "But have we? Consider, Sir; you are wealthy, powerful, in spite of your, ah, handicap." He glanced away as Johnson inspected his hand. "Just think what might have happened had you not been injured? Who can say what new avenues might be opened to you?" "How much?" "Then you'll do it?" asked Cavendish, eagerly. "Perhaps. How much do you need?" "I have my equipment all ready. But I need a great deal of power to operate it. You are one of the directors of Public Power; I need your signature on releases for the necessary leads and, of course, the power itself." "You shall have them. When can we be ready to operate?" Cavendish pursed his lips. "With PP technicians running in the new lines--three days." "Very well. I'll be back." * * * * * T. Arthur Johnson had not, as he had told Cavendish, been a man to pass up an opportunity. Forty years of fighting and clawing his way up through the jungle of business competition had sharpened his senses and heightened his awareness of what one fatal mistake could do. Still, no man is infallible; all miss out on something, sometime. Some men go through their entire lives making the wrong decisions; they end up failures. T. Arthur Johnson was a qualified success. Qualified, for, although successful he might be, as a man he was not happy. It is rarely that the two go hand-in-hand. Happiness and success often seem to be mutually exclusive goals. Yet contentment is a close cousin of happiness, and many let themselves be satisfied with second best.