"Ah, but ye could be, ef we was in 1876! There, there--I know what you want to say--but 'taint so! What would ye say ef I was to tell ye that all ye've got to do is jest to get into a machine I've got an' I can take ye back to 1876 in next to no time! What would ye say----" "I'd say ye was tighter'n a boiled owl, Copernicus Droop." "But I ain't, I ain't!" he almost screamed. "I tell ye I hevn't teched liquor fer two days. I've reformed. Ef ye won't smell my breath----" "Then you're plum crazy," she interrupted. "No, nor crazy either," he insisted. "Why, the whole principle of it is so awful simple! Ef you'd ben to high school, now, an' knew astronomy an' all, you'd see right through it like nothin'." "Well, then, you c'n explain it to them as hez ben to high school, an' that's sister Phoebe. Here she comes now." She went at once to the door to admit the new-comer. Her visitor, watching the pretty younger sister as she stepped in, rosy and full of life, could not but remark the contrast between the two women. "Twenty-two years makes a heap o' difference!" he muttered. "But Rebecca was jest as pretty herself, back in 1876." "Look, Rebecca!" cried Phoebe, as she entered the door, "here's a new book Mrs. Bolton lent me to-day. All about Bacon writing Shakespeare's plays, an' how Bacon was a son of Queen Elizabeth. Do you s'pose he really did?" "Oh, don't ask me, child!" was the nervous reply. "Mr. Droop's in the parlor." Phoebe had forgotten her short interview with Droop, and she now snatched off her hat in surprise and followed her elder sister, nodding to their visitor as she entered. "Set down, both o' ye," said Rebecca. "Now, then, Mr. Droop, perhaps you'll explain." Rebecca was far more mystified and interested than she cared to admit. Her brusque manner was therefore much exaggerated--a dissimulation which troubled her conscience, which was decidedly of the tenderest New England brand. Poor Copernicus experienced a sense of relief as he turned his eyes to those of the younger sister. She felt that Rebecca's manner was distinctly cold, and her own expression was the more cordial in compensation. "Why, Miss Phoebe," he said, eagerly, "I've ben tellin' your sister about my plan to go back to the Centennial year--1876, ye know." "To--to what, Mr. Droop?" Phoebe's polite cordiality gave place to amazed consternation. Droop raised a deprecating hand. "Now don't you go to think I'm tight or gone crazy. You'll understand it, fer you've ben to high school. Now see! What is it makes the days go by--ain't it the daily revolution of the sun?" Phoebe put on what her sister always called "that schoolmarm look" and replied: "Why, it's the turning round of the earth on its axis once in----" "Yes--yes--It's all one--all one," Droop broke in, eagerly. "To put it another way, it comes from the sun cuttin' meridians, don't it?"