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ridiculous; I won't consider it. About how big a sign did
you have in mind?"
     
                Padway dragged himself to
bed right after dinner. There was no way, as far as he knew, of getting back to
his own time.
     
                Never again would he know
the pleasures of the American Journal of Archaeology , of Mickey Mouse,
of flush toilets, of speaking the simple, rich, sensitive English language ...
     
    -
     
                Padway hired his man the
third day after his first meeting with Thomasus the Syrian. The man was a dark,
cocky little Sicilian named Hannibal Scipio.
     
                Padway had meanwhile taken a
short lease on a tumble-down house on the Quirinal, and collected such
equipment and personal effects as he thought he would need. He bought a
short-sleeved tunic to wear over his pants, with the idea of making himself
less conspicuous. Adults seldom paid much attention to him in this motley town,
but he was tired of having small boys follow him through the streets. He did,
however, insist on having ample pockets sewn into the tunic, despite the
tailor's shocked protests at ruining a good, stylish garment with this heathen
innovation.
     
                He whittled a mandrel out of
wood and showed Hannibal Scipio how to bend the copper stripping around it.
Hannibal claimed to know all that was necessary about soldering. But when
Padway tried to bend the tubing into shape for his still, the seams popped open
with the greatest of ease. After that Hannibal was a little less cocky — for a
while.
     
                Padway approached the great
day of his first distillation with some apprehension. According to Tancredi's
ideas this was a new branch of the tree of time. But mightn't the professor
have been wrong, so that, as soon as Padway did anything drastic enough to
affect all subsequent history, he would make the birth of Martin Padway in 1908
impossible, and disappear?
     
    -
     
                "Shouldn't there be an
incantation or something?" asked Thomasus the Syrian.
     
                "No," said Padway.
"As I've already said three times, this isn't magic." Looking around
though, he could see how some mumbo-jumbo might have been appropriate: running
his first large batch off at night in a creaky old house, illuminated by
flickering oil lamps, in the presence of only Thomasus, Hannibal Scipio, and
Ajax. All three looked apprehensive, and the Negro seemed all teeth and
eyeballs. He stared at the still as if he expected it to start producing demons
in carload lots any minute.
     
                "It takes a long time,
doesn't it?" said Thomasus, rubbing his pudgy hands together nervously.
His good eye glittered at the nozzle from which drop after yellow drop slowly
dripped. "I think that's enough," said Padway. "We'll get mostly
water if we continue the run." He directed Hannibal to remove the kettle
and poured the contents of the receiving flask into a bottle. "I'd better
try it first," he said. He poured out a little into a cup, sniffed, and
took a swallow. It was definitely not good brandy. But it would do.
     
                "Have some?" he
said to the banker.
     
                "Give some to Ajax
first."
     
                Ajax backed away, holding
his hands in front of him, yellow palms out. "No, please, master —"
     
                He seemed so alarmed that
Thomasus did not insist. "Hannibal, how about you?"
     
                "Oh, no," said
Hannibal. "Meaning no disrespect, but I've got a delicate stomach. The
least little thing upsets it. And if you're all through, I'd like to go home. I
didn't sleep well last night." He yawned theatrically. Padway let him go,
and took another swallow.
     
                "Well," said
Thomasus, "if you're sure it won't hurt me, I might take just a
little." He took just a little, then coughed violently, spilling a few
drops from