"What," demanded both Helens simultaneously, "are you two talking about?"
The query silenced both Hanks suddenly. Then Hank Number 2 said, "Well, come on. Follow me. I'll go slow an' call the stud settin's for you so's you can follow. One-oh-four—"
"One-oh-four!" repeated our Hank dutifully, and he pushed a button. So off we went again!
Even I could see that this time our journey was a shorter, more direct and more logical one than the haphazard voyage on which our incomplete time-machine had borne us. I began to recognize a certain form, a certain coherence, to the unfolding "historic" or pseudo-historic stops we made from time to time to check our course.
Out of the scramble of heterogeneous possibilities we merged into a "history" which was based on certain fundamentals every American schoolchild knows. We left those impossible Americas where foreign nations ruled, settled into a background approximating that I was accustomed to. There were still differences. Once we bumped into a political meeting of a party known as the "Bull Moose"; Helen said, "Why, I remember reading about that party! Theodore Roosevelt—"
"In 1912," finished the other Helen. "We must be getting close, Hank."
"Yes, sweety-pie," said our Hank abstractedly, and blushed a brilliant crimson as he saw our Helen glare at him.
We had one frightening experience. We came to a Time wherein we looked out upon our little college town—we had set the positional stops by now, and were hovering above the possibilities of that place—to find it a smouldering pile of wreckage and ruin. We were so horrified by this that we had to stop and discover the reason. It took some little doing, but finally we succeeded in learning the whole story. This desolate scene was my fault!
In one of my possible existences I had made the horrible mistake of paying my favorite tailor the money I owed him. Overcome by this unexpected fortune, he had gone out on a big drunk. As a result, he had come home and set his shop on fire. The fire, getting swiftly out of control, had laid the entire city to ruin, killing hundreds and making thousands homeless.