There was one additional thing. When I had seemed to be Orville, I
had looked in the mirror, and my features had been my own. As David
Thordsen I had looked in the mirror, and my features were my own.
Still the same face, the same eyes looking at me.
While I had been mulling these things over in my thoughts I had been
riding on the bus. The Rexlo buildings were in the next block. I rose
and went to the doors, eager to get to the lab. A thousand things could
be checked and cross-checked there. The things on Orville's bench,
Orville himself when and if he showed up.
"Hello, Thordsen!" I looked at the man who greeted me so cheerfully,
and nodded. But I had never seen him before. "Nice mornin'," he said,
falling into step beside me as we entered the main building.
The elevator was running now. We stepped in. The elevator operator
smiled and said. "Good morning, Dr. Thordsen, Dr. Mintner."
Mintner! This stranger beside me was Mintner. I had worked with Mintner
for a long time--and yet I had never seen him before. This man was a
stranger.
We stepped out of the elevator together. We went down the hall to the
lab door. It was open. I went in first.
My gaze went to my bench--or Orville's bench, rather. A man was there,
his back to me, his shoulders and elbows moving in the process of
fitting parts together.
"Morning, Orville," Mintner said behind me.
The man at the bench turned his head. He smiled and said, "Hi, Hank.
Hi, Dave."
I stared at his face. I tried to find something familiar in it. There
was nothing. I had never seen him before. I was positive of that.
And it was a strange feeling. I went across the lab and glanced over
his bench. The tube bank was there, the condensors and resistors,
almost in the same positions I had left them last night.
"Uh, Dave," Orville Snyder said.
"Yes?" I said, still looking at the things on the bench.
"Uh, I'm a little short again. Could you spare another twenty?"
* * * * *
I looked at him, startled. The woman who was his wife--she had
drunk up the grocery money. My eyes flicked down toward his hip
pocket. I was certain that in his wallet was a slip of paper with
my--Thordsen's--name on it, and a figure after it. Fifty dollars, to be
exact.
I took out my wallet and looked in it. I had two twenties and three
fives and some ones. I extracted a twenty.
"Thanks, Dave," he said gratefully. He took out his wallet and put the
twenty in it. I caught a glimpse of two of the identification cards.
They were the ones I had examined so carefully last night.
"Aren't you going to mark it down?" I asked, smiling.
He looked at me queerly. "Mark it down?" he echoed. "I can remember.
This makes seventy."
"Okay," I said. I went over to my desk. A few minutes later I watched
from the corner of my eye as he extracted the folded slip and jotted
swift marks on it. A notation of the new amount he owed me. And I
wasn't the only one he owed money to--because of his wife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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