Time and Again by Jack Finney, Paul Hecht Page B

watching something. Why not that?"
    "In theory I suppose there's no reason why not; I was afraid you might put it that way. All right, Si. After you left yesterday I phoned the board members. We have a bimonthly meeting scheduled for later this week, and I asked them to move it up to today. I didn't know last night what you had in mind but I thought it might be something they'd have to decide; I don't have an entirely free hand, you know. I'll present this to them. And they'll say no, too."
    A little later Danziger introduced me, in the board room. It was a fairly large conference room typical of the kind in many an ad agency: a portable blackboard up front; a good many enlarged photographs and sketches pinned to the cork-board walls, most of them of settings or the plans for settings down on the Big Floor; a long conference table surrounded by men in shirt-sleeves, sweaters, or suit coats. Danziger led me around the table, introducing me. Some I'd met already — Rube was there, wearing a suit today; he just grinned and winked at me — and there was an engineer Rube had introduced me to in the hallways. Now I met a history professor from Columbia, an intelligent-looking, surprisingly young man; a bald, chubby meteorologist from Cal Tech; a professor of biology from Chicago University who looked like a professor; a professor of history from Princeton who looked like a nightclub comedian; a tense bright-eyed army colonel named Esterhazy, in a civilian suit; a mean-looking U.S. senator; and several others. It was a fairly distinguished gathering, I suppose, but I realized from the way each of them looked at me as we'd speak and shake hands that I was the guest of honor for the moment. Each of them in turn would stand, smiling and speaking, and I'd smile and respond, but as we shook hands he'd be searching my face. It made me realize that I and a half-dozen others were what this and every other meeting was about: We were the project, and I felt suddenly important, walking to the cafeteria, where I sat over a cup of coffee waiting for Danziger.
    He walked in about twenty minutes later, looking pleased and a little surprised. Sitting at my table then, he told me that the board had agreed to my request. It was Rube, the Princeton professor, and Esterhazy who'd carried the ball for me, he said. They argued that there was no harm and there might even possibly be some advantages in what I wanted to do, and presently it was so decided. Danziger smiled and said, "So now you present me with a temptation. My mother was sixteen years old in 1882. She was born February sixth, and on her birthday her father, mother and sister took her to Wallack's theater, and that was the occasion on which she met my father; it was a family anecdote all their lives. He arrived at the theater, an exuberant young man-about-town, saw Apple Mary, a character of the day who sold apples outside the theaters, and on impulse handed her a five-dollar gold piece, saying it was good luck for her and good luck for him. She replied that his evening would be blessed; he walked on into the lobby and his eye was caught by a green velvet dress, and by the girl who wore it. He knew the people she and her family were talking to, went over, was introduced, and they were married several years later. You can guess the temptation you've presented me with now." I nodded, smiling, and Danziger sat back in his chair. "There are many times when I have no least faith in this project; none. The whole thing seems absurd, hopeless. But if it should succeed, Si, if you should actually reach the New York of that time, and standing inconspicuously in a corner of the lobby were able to witness that meeting… well, if we're to have one personal purpose, we can have a second. I'd value very very much, Si, your sketch, a portrait of them as they were then." He stood up abruptly. "And now we're in a hurry." They could be ready for me on Monday, he said, by working over the weekend, and I sat