It was a square of metal the size of a match box, and at one end was a coil of wire like a watch-spring. On both faces of the box were tiny buttons, like adding machine keys. Dugan kept jiggling the thing absently, and pressing the buttons. I could hear the syncopated clicks. I thought, _This guy is really soft in the head. He plays with things._ Belcher said, "Sure you're not a writer?" Dugan shook his head, then glanced at Joey. Joey smiled a little and turned away because he's very shy about ethics and such. He doesn't want people to think he runs around trying to get writers on his string. Mallison said to Jinx, "Well, what in hell is this story?" Jinx said, "I don't know. Ask him." They all looked at Junior G-Man. I wanted to warn him not to spill anything because pulp writers are leeches. They'll suck the blood right out of your brain. You have to copyright your dialogue at the Tuesday luncheons. Dugan said, "It's--it's about a Time Machine." We all groaned and I didn't worry about Dugan's ideas any more after that. Joey said, "Oh God, not that! The market's sick of time stories. You couldn't sell one with Shakespeare's name on it." Dugan actually looked startled. "What's the matter?" Belcher asked, showing off his erudition. "You got a manuscript with Shakespeare's name on it? Discover a Shakespeare autograph on a pulp story?" He laughed uproariously as though he'd cracked a joke at my expense. Dugan said, "N-no--only that's the story. I mean--" He faltered and then said, "I wish you'd let me just tell you this story." We said, "Sure, go ahead." * * * * * "Well," Dugan began, "perhaps it isn't very original at that, but it's what you might call provocative. The scene is the Twenty-third Century--over three hundred years from now. At a great American university, physicists have devised a--a Time Machine. It's a startling invention, of course, just as the invention of electric light was startling; but its operation is based on sane physical laws--" "Never mind the explanations," Belcher interrupted. "We've all alibied a Time Machine at one time or another. Land-sakes! You don't even have to any more. You just write 'Time Machine' and the readers take the rest for granted." "When the story begins," Dugan continued, "the machine has been in use for several years. But for the first time it's to be used for literary purposes. This is because back in the first half of the Twentieth Century there lived a great writer. He was so great that modern critics call him the New Shakespeare. He's called that not only for his genius, but because, like the original Shakespeare, almost nothing is known of his life." Mallison said, "That's impossible." "Not altogether," I argued. "It's conceivable that wars and unprecedented bombings and fires could destroy records. Why even today there are gaps in the lives of contemporary artists that will never be filled up."