"Naturally," Donald said. "That's when we got here. We'll skip the technicalities, but it's always easier to land on something that's moving. Standard procedure. I don't really understand it myself, but I'm no engineer. We landed in the twentieth century--is it the twentieth or the twenty-first?" "The twentieth," Victor assured him. "Isn't that silly of me. I'm always getting mixed up. It doesn't make much difference, though, you know. Not much of a change from one to the other. Not like the nineteenth and twentieth, nothing like that at all. Do you ever find yourself wondering if it's the twentieth of the month or the twenty-first?" "I have a calendar on my desk." "Oh," Donald mused. "I didn't notice it." He stared intently at Victor Quink while he munched his celery. "It's not hard to see why you've risen to the top of your profession. Calendar on your desk, eh?" He looked at his wife and tapped the side of his head significantly. * * * * * "You landed aboard this train some eight months ago," Dr. Quink prompted. "What are you doing here, anyhow? Are you an historian?" "Nonsense," he replied at once. "Haven't you noticed all the books you people are writing? Every one of your presidents, every general, every field-marshal, every scientist, manufacturer, tennis star, and juvenile delinquent has written a book, or at least a serial for the _Post_. No reason at all for any historian to come back to this particular age. No other age in all history, I might add, has been so fond of itself or so cognizant of the need for preserving itself and its records for posterity as has yours. And with very little reason. But of course that last is only a personal observation, and I may be prejudiced, having lived here, so to speak, for these past months. You get to see the seamy side of a civilization, you know, when you live there yourself. Incidentally, would you be interested to know how your age has been classified by posterity? Of course you would, silly of me to ask. Well, to get on with it, you know how historians are always _naming_ periods, and groups, and whatever. The Age of Darkness, you remember, then the Age of Awakening, the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, et cetera? As it turns out, you've come down to us as the Age of Verbiage. Amusing, eh? No? Well, you can't please everybody. I thought it was cute. But in answer to your question I'll have to say no, I'm just a tourist. I'm on vacation. Nothing more sensational than that, I'm afraid." "And naturally you took your wife with you," Victor added. * * * * * Donald looked down at his plate for just a moment or two, then answered "naturally," without raising his eyes at all. "Somehow, Mr. Fairfield," Victor said, "somehow I get the feeling you're holding out on me, you're not telling me all."