The president of I.I.I. nodded wearily.
"I heard you right?" asked Peter incredulously.
Edwin Porter nodded.
"But look, sir. An accident, by definition, is an unforeseen incident, which by common usage has come to be accepted as misfortunate, although the term 'accident' may correctly be applied to—"
"Wright, after you have been to the Oak Tool Works, you will become violently anti-semantic."
"But look, sir. If this accident is forecast with certainty, why can't it be averted?"
"Because it has happened already."
"But you said eight o'clock."
"I did," said Porter. "And I mean it."
"But ... but it is now about three-thirty in the afternoon. At eight o'clock this evening there is to be an accident that has happened already. The Oak Tool Works is in this same time-zone; they're running on Central Standard Time, too. So far as I know, the Oak Tool Works is not manufacturing time machines, are they?"