The words "First Edition" were what I was thinking about most.
The heavy-set man in the ornate armchair was saying, "The bullet struck me as I was pulling on my boot...."
I was kneeling on the floor of a Victorian living room. I'm quite familiar with Earth history and I recognized the period immediately.
Then I realized what I had been trying to get from Doc all these months—time travel.
A thin, sickly man was sprawled in the other chair in a rumpled dressing gown. My eyes held to his face, his pinpoint pupils and whitened nose. He was a condemned snowbird! If there was anything I hated or held in more contempt than tourists or Martians, it was a snowbird.
"My clients have occasioned singular methods of entry into these rooms," the thin man remarked, "but never before have they used instantaneous materialization."
The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. "I say—I say, I would like to see you explain this, my dear fellow."
"I have no data," the thin man answered coolly. "In such instance, one begins to twist theories into fact, or facts into theories. I must ask this unemployed, former professional man who has gone through a serious illness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the place and time from which he comes."
The surprise stung. "How did you know?" I asked.