"Now see here," I finally broke in. "Don't they talk English where you come from? And just how do you come to be here anyway? I built a time machine to travel into the future, and instead I get you telling me how deep I am. Are you here or am I there?" "You are here, o-daddy-boy, and I also am here. But, to explain this, I may have to use some angle talk, which is what you mean by English. We read your books--which are collectors' items, by the way--and we decided you were way under the zero mark, especially when we saw that the angleheads wouldn't touch any of your ideas. So we got together and made our time machine. But I am sad to report, doctor-o, that your theory was a bit less than two-hundred-per-cent correct. There were a few errors, which we found." It was something of a shock to hear this future rock-and-roller tell me there were mistakes in my work, and I started to argue with him about it. But his attention wasn't on the conversation. He was sniffing thoughtfully, the thing he'd called sense of wonder shining in his eyes. He was looking at the steaks Marilyn had set on the table. "Reach that!" he said, awed. "Gen-you-wine solid flesh! Man-o! I haven't seen a steak like that in all my off-beat life!" So naturally we invited him to sit down at the table and he didn't have to be asked more than once. It seemed that food was pretty expensive in 1991, which is the year he came from, and what there was of it mostly came from factories where they shoveled soy beans and yeast into a machine and it came out meat at the other end, if you didn't make too much fuss about what you called meat. But with so much of the good farm land ruined by atomic dust, and so much more turned into building lots on account of the growing population, it was the best they could do. * * * * * When we heard this, we pushed the second steak in front of him and he showed he was a growing boy by finishing every scrap, along with a double order of French frieds and half a dozen ears of corn on the cob. But he had to give up after two pieces of pie. He sat back in the chair, patted his stomach and looked as if he had just won the Irish sweepstakes. He looked at the big refrigerator. When Marilyn opened it to put things away, his eyes almost popped out at the sight of the meat stored there. "Man-o!" he said. "You must be rich!" Marilyn laughed. "No, not rich--far from it. We operate a restaurant and that's our stock you see." "Oh, doll-o! I should not have eaten so much. What do you charge for a meal like that?" "We would get three and a half for each order," I said, diplomatically not mentioning all his side orders, "although we don't get much carriage trade here. But don't let it worry you. Nothing's too good for a guest from the future." "Three and a half?" He looked amazed. "Why, such a feed would bring twenty-five or thirty where I come from--if you could find it! Let me pay, o-daddy-friend, at least your price."