Founding Fathers

by Robert Bloch

We doubt if anyone but Robert Bloch could dissolve what at first appears to be an outrageous distortion of history—the Founding Fathers in gangster roles!—into such a sunburst of dazzling humor that we find ourselves forgiving him almost before we discover that there is nothing to forgive. You see, the opening scene of this hilarious science fantasy isn’t really in the least irreverent, for the astounding, turnabout climax sets history by the ears!

If you’re determined to change history nothing can equal a time-machine. But be warned! You may prematurely whiten your bones!

Early on the morning of July 4th, 1776, Thomas Jefferson poked his peruked head into the deserted chamber of what was to be known as Independence Hall and yelled, “Come on, you guys, the coast is clear!”

As he stepped into the big room he was followed by John Hancock, who puffed nervously on a cigarette.

“All right,” Jefferson said. “Ditch the butt, will ya? You wanna louse us up, creep?”

“Sorry, boss.” Hancock glanced around the place, then addressed a third man who entered behind him. “Dig this,” he murmured. “Not an ashtray in the joint. What kind of a setup we got here anyway, Nunzio?”

The third man scowled. “Don’t call me Nunzio,” he growled. “The name’s Charles Thomson, remember?”

“Okay, Chuck.”

“Charles!” The third man dug John Hancock in the ribs. “Straighten that wig of yours. Ya look like somethin’ out of a Boy Scout pageant yet.”

John Hancock shrugged. “Well, whaddya expeck? Guy can’t even smoke, and these here britches are so tight I’m scared to sit down in ’em.”

Thomas Jefferson turned and confronted him. “You ain’t gonna sit down,” he said. “All you gotta do is sign and keep your yap shut. Let Ben do the talking, remember?”

“Ben?”

“Benjamin Franklin, schmoe,” said Thomas Jefferson.

“Somebody mention my name?” The short fat balding man hurried into the room, carefully adjusting square-lensed spectacles to the bridge of his nose.

“What took you so long?” Thomas Jefferson demanded. “You run into trouble back there?”

“No trouble,” Benjamin Franklin replied. “They’re out cold, and the gags are holding. It’s just these glasses—the lenses distort my vision. I’d forgotten I’d have to wear them.”

“Can’t you ditch ’em?”

“No. Somebody might get suspicious.” Franklin peered at his companions over the tops of the spectacles. “They’re likely to get suspicious anyway, if you don’t do what I told you.” He glanced around the room. “What time is it?”

Thomas Jefferson fumbled with the ruffles at his sleeves and gazed down at the face of his wristwatch. “Seven-thirty,” he announced.

“You’re sure?”

“Checked it with Western Union.”

“Never mind that Western Union talk. And take off that thing—put it in your pocket. It’s stuff like that can get us into trouble.”

“Trouble,” John Hancock groaned. “These here shoes are killin’ me. They ain’t nearly my size.”

“Well wear them and be quiet,” Benjamin Franklin told him. “I wish to God you’d remembered to shave, too. Fine thing—the President of the Continental Congress on the most important day of our history, coming in without shaving.”

“I forgot. Also they was no place to plug in an electric shaver.”

“Well, never mind now. The main thing is just to be quiet and remember what you’re supposed to do. Mr. Jefferson, do you have the Declaration?”

Nobody answered. Franklin strode up to the tall man in the peruke. “Jefferson, that’s you I’m talking to.”

“I forgot.” The big man smiled sheepishly.

“You’d better not forget. Now, where is it?”

“Right here in my pocket.”

“Well, get it out. We’ve got to sign right away, before anybody else shows up. I expect they’ll start drifting in around eight at the latest.”

“Eight?” Jefferson sighed. “Do you mean to tell me they go to work that early here?”

“Our friends in the back room looked as if they’d been working all night,” Franklin reminded him.

“Ain’t they never heard of union hours?”

“No, and don’t you mention it, either.” Franklin surveyed his companions earnestly. “That goes for all of you. Watch your tongues. We can’t afford a slip-up.”

“Telling me?” Charles Thomson took the parchment from Thomas Jefferson and unfolded it.

“Careful with that,” Franklin warned.

“Pipe down, will ya? I just wanna take a look at it,” Thomson replied. “I ain’t never seen that there thing.” He glanced at the manuscript curiously. “Hey, dig this crazy hanwriting. Its all lettering, like.”

He spread the Declaration on a table and squinted down at it, mumbling aloud.

“‘When inna course a human events, it becomes nessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connecked them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate’—hey, what kinda double-talk is this, anyway? Whyn’t these guys write English, huh?”

“Never mind.” Ben Franklin took the parchment from him and strode to a desk. “I’m going to revise it right now.” He rummaged around in the drawer, finding fresh parchment and a quill pen. “I’m not up to copying the lettering style, I’m afraid, but I can explain that to the Congress easily enough. I’ll tell them that Jefferson here made his last-minute changes in a hurry. The hurry part of it is no lie.”

He bent over the blank parchment and studied the Declaration as it rested alongside. “Got to keep the style,” he said. “Very important. But the main thing is to add the provisions at the end.”

“Provisions?” John Hancock brightened. “We gonna have some grub, hey? I’m starved.”

“That can wait,” Jefferson snapped. “Now keep still and let the guy work. This is the most important part of the whole caper, understand?”

Then there was silence in the room—silence except for the busy scratching of the quill pen as Benjamin Franklin wrote. Jefferson stood over his shoulder, nodding from time to time. “Don’t forget to put in that part about me being temporary boss,” he said. “And stick in that we need a treasurer.”

Franklin nodded impatiently. “I’ve got it all down here,” he answered. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Think they’ll sign?”

“Sure they’ll sign. It’s only logical. Right after the part about being free and independent states there should be a mention of a temporary governing arrangement. They can’t object to that. Wonder why it was left out in the first place.”

“Search me.” Jefferson shrugged. “How would I know?”

“Well, you’re supposed to have written it.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right.”

Franklin finished, sat back, and poked at Jefferson’s chest with his quill. “Cough,” he said.

Jefferson coughed.

“Again. Louder.”

“What’s the big idea?”

“You’ve got laryngitis,” Franklin told him. “A bad case. That’s why you’re not talking. Anybody asks you any questions, you just cough. Right?”

“Okay. I didn’t want to talk anyway.”

Franklin gazed at Hancock and Thomson. “You two better sign and disappear. When the gang arrives, you go in the back room and keep an eye on our buddies there. I’ll make up some excuse why you’re not around—can’t take the risk of having you cornered and questioned. Got it?”

The two men nodded. Franklin extended the quill pen. “Here. You two are supposed to sign first.” As John Hancock reached for the pen, Franklin chuckled. “Just put your John Hancock right here.”

Hancock signed with a flourish. He gave the pen to Charles Thomson.

“Remember, you’re the secretary,” Franklin said, as Thomson dipped the quill in the inkwell. “What’s the matter, that quill too clumsy for you?”

“Sure it’s clumsy,” Thomson said. “And these clothes are murder. And none of us guys knows how to talk. We can’t get away with this, Thinker. We’re gonna make mistakes.”

Benjamin Franklin stood up. “We’re going to make history,” he declared. “Just follow orders and everything will be all right.” He paused and lifted his hand. “In the immortal words of myself—Benjamin Franklin—we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

They had hung together for a long time in Philly—Sammy, Nunzio, Mush and Thinker Tomaszewski. They shoved a little queer, peddled a few decks, but mostly they made book.

It was a nice setup for all of them, particularly since the Thinker came into the deal. The Thinker was a genuine shyster, with a degree and an office and everything, and he fronted for the outfit. The funny part of it was, Thinker Tomaszewski had a regular law practice too, and he could have made a pretty nice piece of change without cutting corners.

But he worked with them for kicks, at first.

“The only way I can explain it,” he told them, “is that I don’t seem to have a super-ego.” Always with the two-dollar words, that was the Thinker.

And it was his two-dollar words that finally got them into trouble. In the beginning, everything was fine. Using his law office as a front, he had no difficulty in getting acquainted with a better class of mark—not the two-bucks-on-the-nose working stiff, but heavy bettors. He steered them to Sammy or Nunzio or Mush, and they made a big book.

They made a big buck, too. So big that they just had to place a few bets of their own, with some of the top wheels like Mickey Tarantino. Playing it smart, of course, and working only on inside tips, when they were sure of a horse getting the needle.

Came an afternoon when the needle stuck. And they were stuck for twenty grand. Mickey Tarantino held out his hand and smiled. But the smile vanished when Sammy went to him and said he needed time to pay up.

“Whaddya mean?” Mr. Tarantino had inquired. “You guys are loaded. Look at all the rich suckers you make book with.”

“All we got to show for it is markers,” Sammy confessed. “It’s like your old man’s delicatessen. The poor guys pay and the highclass trade puts it on the cuff. You know how those big operators work. Well, it’s the same in our line. You can’t collect from them.”

“You damn well better colleck,” Mr. Tarantino advised. “Because you got until tomorrow morning. Or elst you wind up in Plotter’s Field, or wherever.”

So Sammy went away and called a meeting at Thinker Tomaszewski’s office and broke the news.

Thinker had news for them too. “Tarantino isn’t the only one who thinks we’re rolling in the stuff,” he announced. “Uncle Sam is looking down our throats for a little matter of back income taxes.”

“Great!” Sammy groaned. “Tarantino’s hoods in front of us and the Federal finks behind us. Which way do we turn?”

“I suggest you turn to our clients,” Thinker answered. “Call on some of our investors and ask them to redeem their markers.”

So Sammy and Nunzio and Mush called. And early that evening they assembled and pooled results.

“Three grand!” Sammy snorted. “Three lousy grand!”

“Is that all?” The Thinker was genuinely mystified. “I should have thought you’d get more than that.”

“Sure we got more. Excuses we got, promises we got, brush-offs we got. But here’s the moola. Three grand, period.”

“How about Cobbett?” Thinker asked.

“Professor Cobbett? He’s your baby, isn’t he?”

The Thinker nodded. Professor Cobbett was indeed his baby. One of the upper crust.

“What’s he into us for?” Sammy demanded.

“About eight, I think.”

“Eight and three is eleven. Not so hot. But if we could get it fast, maybe Tarantino would hold off for a while.”

“Let’s get it fast,” Mush suggested. “Let’s go out and see old Cobbett right now.”

So they all piled into Sammy’s car and went out to see old Cobbett. The Professor had a country place—a nice layout for a man who lived all alone—and he was cordial and pleasant when he greeted the Thinker on the front porch.

He was not quite so cordial or pleasant when he learned what the Thinker wanted, and he was downright inhospitable when the Thinker beckoned and his three companions appeared out of the darkness.

They had to stick their feet in the door and they had to stick their heaters in his ribs.

“No foolin’,” Nunzio told him. “We want our loot.”

“Oh dear!” said Professor Cobbett, as they marched him backwards into his own parlor. “But I have no money.”

“Don’t con us,” Mush told him. “Look at this joint, all this fancy furniture.”

“Mortgaged,” the Professor sighed. “Mortgaged to the hilt, and past it.”

“What about this here school where you teach at?” Mush asked. “You could maybe brace them for some advance dough on your salary, huh?”

“I am no longer connected with the university.”

“What gives here?” Sammy wanted to know.

“Yes,” Thinker added. “I thought you were a wealthy man.”

The Professor shrugged and ran his hand through his graying hair. “Things are not always what they seem,” he said. “For example, I considered you to be a reputable professional man. And when I innocently inquired about the possibilities of placing a small bet on the races, I never dreamed you were associated with these ruffians.”

“Watch that talk,” Sammy warned. “We ain’t no more ruffians than eight grand is a small bet. Now whaddya mean about things ain’t always what they seem?”

“Well, it’s like this,” the Professor answered. “I did have a certain sum of money set aside—yes. And I did have a position of some eminence at the university. The fact that both money and position are gone today can be attributed to one thing—my private research project.

“The cost of experimental models reduced my savings. The revelation of my theories cost me my faculty position. An attempt to raise funds to continue my work led me to the last resort—betting on the races. Now I have nothing.”

“You can say that again,” Sammy told him. “In about three minutes you’re gonna have nothing with lace around it.”

“Wait a moment,” the Thinker interrupted. “Experimental models, you said. What have you been building?”

“I’ll show you, if you like.”

“Come on,” Sammy ordered. “Boys, keep the heaters warm, in case he pulls a funny.”

But the Professor didn’t pull a funny. He led them downstairs to what had been the basement, and was now an ornate private laboratory. He led them up to the large rectangular metal structure, covered with coils and tubing. It had a vague resemblance to an outhouse designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

“Jeez,” Nunzio commented. “Whatchoo doin’, buildin’ one of them there Frankensteens?”

“I bet it’s a space-ship,” Mush hazarded. “Was you gonna make a getaway to Mars?”

“Please,” the Professor sighed. “You’re making sport of me.”

“We’re making hamburger of you in another minute,” Sammy corrected him. “This doojigger ain’t no use to us. Couldn’t get twenny bucks for it at a junk-yard.”

Thinker Tomaszewski shook his head. “Just what is this object, Professor?”

Professor Cobbett blushed. “I hesitate to designate it as such, after the rebuffs I received at the hands of supposed authorities, but there is no other intelligible term for it. It is a time-machine.”

“Oof!” Sammy put his hand to his forehead. “And this is what we let get into us for eight grand. A nutty scientist, yet!”

The Thinker frowned at him. “A time-machine, you say? An instrument capable of transporting one forward or backwards in time?”

“Backwards only,” the Professor answered. “Forward travel is manifestly impossible, since the future is non-existent. And travel is not the best word. Transit more closely approximates the meaning, insofar as time possesses no material or spatial characteristics, being bound to a three-dimensional universe by the single observable phenomenon which manifests itself as duration. Now if duration is designated as X, and—”

“Shuddup!” Nunzio suggested. “Let’s kiss off this joker and scram outta here. We’re wastin’ time.”

“Wasting time.” The Thinker nodded. “Professor Cobbett, is this a working model?”

“I’m practically positive. It has never been tested. But I can show you formulae which—”

“Never mind that now. Why haven’t you tested it?”

“Because I’m not sure of the past. Or rather, our present relationship to it. If any person or object in present time were sent to the past, alterations would occur. What is here now would be absent, and something added to what was there, then. This addition would alter the past. And if the past were altered, then it would not be the same past we know.” He frowned. “It’s hard to state without recourse to symbolic logic.”

“You mean you’re afraid that by time-travel you’d change the past? Or come out in a different past—a past made different because you traveled into it?”

“That’s an over-simplification, but you have the general idea.”

“Then what good is your work on this?”

“No good, I’m afraid. But I wanted to prove a point. It became an almost monomaniacal obsession. I have no excuses.”

“So.” Sammy stepped forward. “Thanks for the lecture, but like you say, you got no excuses. And we got no time. This here basement looks like a nice soundproof place for target practice—”

The Thinker grabbed Sammy’s arm. “What’s the sense?” he asked.

“The guy welshed.”

“So he welshed. Will murder change that? Will murder help us now?”

“No.” Sammy bit his lip. “But what we gonna do? We got no dough. We got Tarantino after us, and also the govmint. We can’t go back to town.”

The Thinker looked around. “Why not stay here, then? We’re safe, isolated, with a nice big roof over our heads. Let’s enjoy the Professor’s hospitality for a while.”

“Yeah,” Mush said. “But how long? We’re gonna run out of dough, or food, or somethin’. We’d just be stallin’ for time.”

The Thinker smiled. “Stalling for time.” He gazed intently at the complicated structure in the center of the cellar. “But here is the logical vehicle for a getaway.”

“You mean jump in that dizzy outfit and beat it?” Sammy demanded. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m serious,” the Thinker replied. “Some time in the near future we’ll be safe in the past.”

It took a lot of figuring. That was the Thinker’s job, working with the Professor during the next few days.

“How do you set the controls up? Is this for steering?”

“You do not steer—you press the computers. Here, I’ll show you again.”

“And you can choose any time in the past, any time at all?” asked the Thinker.

“Theoretically. The main problem is accurate computation. Remember, we and our earth are not static. We do not occupy the same position in space that we did an instant ago, let alone a longer period. We must consider the speed of light, planetary motion, inclination, and—”

“That’s going to be your department. But you can establish past position mathematically and set up a guiding-plan for the computers accordingly?”

“I’m reasonably certain of it.”

“Then all that remains is to determine where—or rather, when we’re going to.”

Sammy and Nunzio and Mush tackled that problem on their own.

“Jeez, mebbe alls we gotta do is go back a couple weeks to before when the Professor made his bets. Then we ain’t out no dough.”

“Yeah? What about them there back taxes?”

“So we go to before when we owed ’em.”

“That’s when we went into business, stupid. We was broke.”

“Well, if we can go anywheres we want in time, how’s about way back, to the Egypians, like? I seen one of them there pitchers, they had all these hot broads runnin’ around in their unnerwear—”

“You talk Egypian, stupid? Besides, we don’t wanna stay back someplace forever. Way I figger, we go to some time where we can lay our mitts on some loot, real fast-like. And then come back.”

“Now you got it. That’s the angle. Hey, how about that there Gold Rush?”

The Professor interrupted them. “I’m afraid the Gold Rush wouldn’t be of much use to you gentlemen. After all, it occurred in the year eighteen hundred and forty-nine.”

“But you can send us to eighteen forty-nine, can’t you?”

“Conceivably, if my theory is correct. But you would not be in California. You would still be right here in Philadelphia, in the field which stood here before this house was built.”

“Then we gotta find our loot in Philly, huh? Somewheres in the past?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Jeez. And we can’t show up in no vacant field with that machine, either.”

Then the Thinker took over. “I am beginning to pinpoint our problem,” he announced. “Professor, I am going to utilize your library for a day or so. Perhaps I can discover when gold was available in Philadelphia.”

“There’s always the Mint.”

“Too well-guarded. We’d never be able to loot it, any more than it could have been looted by past efforts.”

“Banks?” Sammy brightened. “With our heaters, we could knock over one of them big jugs easy—say, a hunnert years ago.”

“And come out with what? Oldfashioned greenbacks? We wouldn’t be able to use currency of that era today. Arouse suspicion. No, I’m looking for gold.”

Finally, in a copy of Berkeley’s History of the Revolution, the Thinker found it. He broke in upon the others as they sat guarding Professor Cobbett.

“Here’s the answer!” he exulted. “Remember what happened in Philadelphia on July fourth, seventeen seventy-six?”

“That’s a holiday, ain’t it?” Nunzio brightened. “Must be the Phillies took on the Giants in a double-header.”

“Seventeen seventy-six stupid!” Sammy scowled. “Yeah, I remember. They made Washington the President.”

“Nah. It was the Decoration of Indepenence,” Mush corrected.

“Right. The Declaration of Independence was presented to the Continental Congress assembled at what is now Independence Hall. And so forth. But here’s another little-known fact. At the same place, on the same day, the Revolutionary treasury was turned over to a small group for temporary storage. It consisted of upwards of thirty thousand pounds sterling in smelted ingots. That’s about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold.”

“Brother!” Sammy whistled. “What a way to celebrate the Fourth!” Then he frowned. “I’ll bet they had plenny guards around.”

“No, that’s just the point. It was all a secret—few people know of it to this day. Troops brought it in a wagon, around noon. They thought they were hauling documents. It was carted upstairs, and no guards were posted lest suspicion be aroused. Its presence was known only to Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and one or two others—probably John Hancock and maybe Charles Thomson, the Secretary of the Congress. It was to be used to pay troops and buy supplies.”

“It sure could help to pay off old Mickey Tarantino and the Feds. And leave us plenny to spare.”

“That is exactly what I had in mind, gentlemen.” The Thinker smiled. “Now all that remains is to work out the details. I shall concentrate on the historical aspect and the Professor here can work out the mathematical computations.”

Professor Cobbett blanched. “Mathematical computations? But you’re asking the impossible. Why, that was over a hundred and eighty light-years ago; we’ll be faced with the problem of billion-fold magnitudes, and the slightest error or variation can have serious consequences.”

“Ain’t gonna be no errors,” Sammy told him. “Or consequences will be really serious. For you.” He showed the Professor his heater. “Now get to work. We’re going places.”

“Going places.” Mush looked at him. “All this here stuff was at Indepenence Hall. The machine’s here in the cellar. We gonna come out on July fourth inna cow-pasture or somethin’?”

“That’s your job,” Sammy decided. “Case this joint. See how it’s set up for guards at night. Alarm-system, the works. Look it over like you would a bank job. I think we can take over. Nobody’s gonna think a mob would break into a Hysterical Shrine or whatever. We get things set, we hire us a truck and cart the machine right down to the Hall and take off from there some night soon. Right?”

“Hey, that’s a tough deal.”

“Things are tough all over,” Sammy said. “Now get going.”

So Mush got going and the Professor got going and the Thinker got going too. And before the first week was up they were organized.

Mush made his report. The invasion of Independence Hall could be made without too much trouble. Of course it would cost money for the truck, and there might be repercussions, but they could try to pull it off.

And in view of their present hopeless situation—and in view of the possible gain—it was worth the gamble, Sammy decided.

The Professor presented them with the working manual, based on his computations.

“Are you sure this gets us there?” Sammy demanded. “And back, too?”

“Look it over,” the Professor said. “See for yourself.”

“It’s all right,” the Thinker told him. “I’ve checked it. See, we have no set time for return. Our plans call for us to get the gold and come back as soon after the noon hour as possible. So the Professor has worked out return-variations based on five-minute intervals throughout the early afternoon. It’s as foolproof as we can hope to make it.”

“All right, if you say so.” Sammy shrugged. “But what I want to know is, what do we do when we get there?”

“I’ve been working on that angle,” the Thinker said. “Checking all the source books and references I could muster. History texts. Biographical data on Franklin and Jefferson in particular. And I’ve got a plan. Apparently the first ones to arrive that morning were Jefferson and Thomson. Franklin and John Hancock came in early too.

“It’s not quite clear whether any of them spent part of the night there. The important thing is that the four men conceivably held an early morning meeting, discussing the Declaration before Congress convened on the fourth. So if we arrive early enough we’ll be dealing with just four men. The four men who knew about the gold, by the way.”

“Got it,” Sammy said. “We come in, flash our heaters, and take over.”

“Not quite so simple,” the Thinker answered. “Remember, Congress will be gathering that morning. We can’t hope to hold our guns on these four key figures from that time until noon. Any more than we can hope to pass unnoticed in the crowd for such a period.”

He paused as Sammy started to open his mouth, then hastily continued. “I know what you’re thinking, and that won’t work either. We can’t show up at noon and just hijack the shipment. Not in front of fifty or more men, with troops just outside the door.”

“Then what do you figger on us doing?”

The Thinker took a deep breath, and then he told them.

“Oh no!” cried Sammy.

“Me, making like John Hancock?” Mush gasped.

“I should run around in one of them wigs like a big-shot politician?” Nunzio scoffed.

The Thinker was calm. “Don’t you see, it’s the only way? The wigs are perfect disguises. Look, I’ve got pictures of all these men, and we can buy a makeup kit. I’m fortunately bald and approximate Franklin’s build. Physically, we’ll get by. And don’t worry about playing the role of a politician.”

“Yeah.” Mush was thoughtful. “After all, what’s a politician, anyhow? Just a crook that’s learned how to kiss babies.”

“But we won’t be kissing no babies that morning,” Sammy reminded him. “Me, I been reading up a little on that stuff, too. Them four guys did a lot of things on the fourth. Made speeches, tried to get the rest of the Congress to sign, all kinds of stuff. And they knew everybody, everybody knew them. We’d fluff it for sure, trying to do what they did.”

“That’s just the point.” Thinker Tomaszewski was triumphant. “We don’t have to do what they did! Because we’re going back in time, we’re changing what happened. I think I’m familiar enough with Franklin’s personality. I can talk if necessary. Sammy, I’ll coach you. The other two boys can be absent, if need be—and it may well be necessary to guard our machine and our captives in the rear room. We’re not going to merely re-enact history. We’re going to change it, to suit ourselves. Now do you get it?”

They got it, eventually, because the Thinker rammed it down their throats.

And so they got their coaching, got their truck, got their plan, and actually transported the machine bodily into the rear of the vehicle on the evening arranged for departure.

It wasn’t until they stood for the last time in the now open expanse of the cellar that Professor Cobbett voiced a final, timid protest.

“I hesitate to bring this up,” he said, “because you’ll very likely suspect my motives. You’ll think it’s because you’re preempting my property, and because you are unwittingly involving me as an accomplice to your crime. You’ll think it’s because I have patriotic objections to your plans for desecrating our history.”

“Well, haven’t you?” Sammy asked.

“Yes, I admit it.”

Sammy glanced significantly at Nunzio, then back to the Professor as he continued.

“But what I have to say to you now I say in my capacity as a scientist. In that capacity I warn you, as I did on the first evening here. Time-travel is hazardous. The possibility of alteration of the past due to your invasion cannot be discounted. You may well find yourselves up against unforeseen factors, unexpected problems. That’s why I never dared make the attempt myself; not even a journey of one minute, let alone almost two centuries. Should you fail, I must absolve myself of any responsibility. I shall await your return with the utmost trepidation.”

“Don’t bother,” Sammy told him. “We got that all figgered, too. You plan on waiting for our return with a gang of coppers, don’t you?”

The Professor turned pale. “Don’t tell me you gentlemen expect me to come along?” he murmured. “I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t. I’d—I’d be afraid. Frankly, the dangers of dislocation or alteration in the past frighten me worse than the prospect of death itself.”

“I’m glad,” Sammy said slowly. “On account of it’s either—or. And you just made up our minds for us.”

The Thinker was already out in the truck, but Mush and Nunzio stood beside Sammy in the cellar. Nunzio took out his heater and Mush smiled. “Well,” he said. “Looks like we’re starting off our trip with a bang.”

And a bang-up journey it was. There was a route to travel, and guards to knock out and bind, and a heavy machine to cart up into the rear chambers of Independence Hall. Then came the nerve-wracking business of setting it up, and the Thinker’s frantic re-scanning of the Professor’s charts and directions as he set the computers. By the time they were ready to take off—1:45 a.m. on the dot—the transition itself was almost an anti-climax.

Anti-climax it proved to be. They huddled in the machine, the vacuum-lock set and the vacuum-lined walls enclosing them, and a generator hummed and their fluorescent light above the dials dimmed and the Thinker pressed his finger down after endless adjustment of tab-buttons and then—

Nothing happened.

Or seemed to happen, until the moment—or century, or eternity—of darkness elapsed. None of them were conscious of a change at all. It was when they opened the compartment and stepped out that the change occurred, or they were aware of its prior occurrence.

“Thinker!” Nunzio said, blinking in the bright morning sunlight that streamed through the high windows, “We made it!”

Sammy and the Thinker and Mush didn’t even look at him. They were staring at the four men on the other side of the room—four men who stared, in turn, at them.

Then things happened fast. Things happened with orders and heaters and ropes and gags. Things happened with wigs and shoes and clothing.

Four writhing figures squirmed on the floor, then calmed to quiescence as Mush used the butt of his heater.

“Fancy this!” he sighed. “Me knocking out old Ben Franklin hisself!”

“Never mind fancying it now,” the Thinker told him. “We’ve got to get ready for more action.”

And so they’d gone into their act.

Altering the text of the Declaration itself was an inspiration on the Thinker’s part. “Give ’em something to argue about all morning,” he said. “Keep them talking, then we don’t have to. And if they accept the business about temporary governing powers and a treasurer, there’ll be no questions asked when the gold arrives and we take charge of it.”

He glanced at Mush and Nunzio. “You two go in the back room right now. Watch the machine, keep the Founding Fathers company. And don’t forget to watch the windows—maybe the gold will arrive early. Professor Cobbett was no fool. I respect his judgment. If he said things might be a bit different in the past because our coming changed it, maybe he’s right.”

“Nothing different so far,” Sammy said.

“Well, one never knows.”

Mush and Nunzio vanished and the Thinker turned to his companion. “Remember your laryngitis. They call it quinsy in these times, and that’s how I’ll refer to it. And when I do, you cough.”

“Got it,” Sammy said. “But hey, when’s the gang showing up?” He pulled his watch out of his pocket and studied it. “Must be after eight by now.” He frowned. “That’s funny, it stopped. Still says seven-thirty.”

“Let me take a look outside,” the Thinker suggested. He strode to the window. “Crowd down there all right. But—wait a minute—” He tugged Sammy’s arm. “Look at those soldiers!”

“I see ’em. You mean the ones in the tall hats, with the red uniforms?”

“Red uniforms mean British troops.”

“British?”

The Thinker didn’t answer. He rushed to the door of the hall, flung it open. Two grenadiers in scarlet coats confronted him. He stared at the white piping on the coats, stared at the silvery steel of their bayonets.

“Halt!” cried the taller of the two. “In the name of His Majesty.”

“His Majesty?”

“Yes, His Majesty, you pesky rebel.”

“What kind of a gag is this?” Sammy muttered.

“No gag,” the Thinker whispered. “Professor Cobbett knew. We changed the past by coming here. The British occupy Philadelphia.”

“Enough of your blabbing, sirrah,” the soldier shouted. “Save your protests for General Burgoyne. When he enters the city today you and your fellow-traitors can explain at a drum-head court martial.”

The Thinker paled. “Changed history,” he whispered. “Burgoyne the victor. The Congress scattered. The four men we came upon in the back room weren’t waiting for it to meet today. They’ve been trapped here without warning. They’re prisoners. Which means we’re prisoners, too!”

“Oh no we ain’t!” Sammy drew out his heater and pulled the trigger. There was an almost inaudible click. He tried to fire again, but the Thinker slammed the door.

“What good is that?” he murmured. “The place is surrounded.”

“Gun jammed,” Sammy was grumbling. “Can’t figure how—” Then he blinked. “Surrounded. And we’re stuck, huh? Now what?”

“Obviously we get back in the machine and get out of here.”

“But don’t you have to wait until noon, anyway?”

“I’ll worry about that. Let’s get the boys. And hurry. Those soldiers may decide to come in after us at any time.”

So they retreated to the rear room and they got the boys and explained. And in a surprisingly short time they were huddled in the time-machine once more; huddled in the incongruous flummery of their Colonial costumes; huddled and trembling and perspiring as the Thinker hastily checked his data and then reached for the computer levers.

Reached and pressed.

Or tried to press.

“What’s happening?” Sammy shouted, the echo of his voice almost deafening them in the cramped confines of the metal chamber.

“Nothing,” the Thinker groaned. “Nothing’s happening. That’s just the trouble.”

“It don’t work?” Nunzio wailed.

“No. And Sammy’s watch doesn’t work, and your guns don’t work, because all of the principles are wrong, altered the way everything is altered.”

“Let me try!” Mush pawed at the levers, the buttons, the dials. Then they were all clawing and scrabbling at once, and still nothing happened.

The Thinker stopped them. “Might as well give up,” he muttered. “Professor Cobbett was right. We’ve changed the past.”

“But even in seventeen seventy-six, guns and watches and machinery worked, didn’t they?” Sammy demanded.

“In our seventeen seventy-six,” the Thinker said. “In our past. But this isn’t our past any more. It’s our present. And by making the past the present we’ve violated a fundamental law. Or tried to. Actually, fundamental laws can’t be violated.”

“But we came here.”

“Yes. Here. But here isn’t our past. It couldn’t be. It would have to be somewhere else.”

“Where else could it be?” Mush wanted to know.

“A place where modern mechanisms don’t work, not having been perfected yet. A place where the British defeated the forces of the Revolution and captured the Founding Fathers. And that could only be in—an alternate universe.”

“Alternate universe?”

The Thinker was still trying to explain the concept of an alternate universe to them when the soldiers finally came in to drag them away.

He had time only for a final warning as the troops seized them. They were very rough about it.

“Remember, like Franklin said, we must all hang together,” he whispered.

Even there the Thinker was wrong.

They were hanged separately.