Hank grinned sheepishly and worked one bulldog tipped toe into the rug.
"Aw, it wasn't nothin' much, really. Not when you understand whut Time is."
"Oh, naturally!" I said. "But isn't it funny? For the moment it seems to have slipped my mind. What is Time?"
"Why, it's another dimension o' matter. Some calls it the 'fourth dimension,' but that's plumb silly, o' course. Dimensions is dimensions, an' it don't matter how you number 'em so long as you know how to use 'em.
"Anyhow, whut this here machine does is run down a pathway through the Time dimension jest like an auto runs on a road or an elevator runs up an' down or an airyplane flies 'round in circles. See?"
"No!" I said.
"Well, it's as simple as A-B-C, Jim. I just made a helical vortex with these here wires as the motivating cores, and slung the machine in it like a basket. Right now while I test it, I got it operatin' on A.C. house current, but when I push this little doogummy—" He pressed a small switch. "I shift it to self-generatin' D.C. These other levers control the distance in Time it travels, and there's space-location finders, too.
"Only thing I ain't figgered out yet is—"
"Yet!" I gasped. "Yet! You've done all this within four days. Solved a problem that has eluded men of genius for centuries, and you're worried about one minor detail!"
"Well, it ain't whut you might call minor, Jim—"