"Well," said Bill, throwing it at him, "I'm going into the future. I've inherited a time-machine."
"An alarm clock, no doubt?"
"Don't be funny," said Bill, emptying his pockets and dropping half-used spools of thread, zipper feet, needles, tension disks and stray parts of machinery on the desk. "You know that uncle of mine, the one that died a few weeks ago—"
"Oh. Yeah. He hated your guts."
"Oh, no, he didn't. That was just a front. Deep down, he must have admired my intelligence, even when I argued with him about his screwball ideas."
Bill smiled modestly.
"He left everybody else nothing but money. Me he left the time-machine. Molly and I and the foxes are going into the future about two million years—and we aren't coming back."
That'll show him what I think of him and his stupid sewing machines.
The boss didn't believe the story about the time-machine. Still, no harm in kidding the dope along.
"Aw, come on, Bill. The world isn't that much of a mess."