"You get to the future, Ted, suppose you bring me a newspaper. I'll make it worth your while. I've always treated you fair and square, Ted, now haven't I?"
I looked over his shelves. Too many of those dust-covered items were mine. And I didn't have to be a telepath to know what he was thinking.
"Maybe you'd like a paper with the stock market quotations, Uncle? From about thirty years from now, say?"
The smirk was completely gone now. "You get something like that, Ted, I'll pay you! Wouldn't help you out any, because you have nothing to invest. Me now, I could buy something that will keep me in my old age. I'd give you a—hundred bucks for something like that."
I laughed at him. A hundred dollars! Uncle always had his nerve. He was scowling when I left, still trying to figure how he could get in on the gravy, because outside of Marilyn he was the only person who ever thought I might succeed.
Marilyn cooked dinner for us while I was putting the final touches on the time machine.
"Tonight we celebrate," she said. "Steak."
It smelled wonderful, but the occasional whiff of ozone from my equipment was more exciting. I'd told Marilyn we had about an hour before I could make the test, but with my working faster than I had expected and her getting behind with the meal, she was just putting the steaks on the table when I was done with the machine.
"Oh, but let's eat first, Ted!" she said.