Cavendish winced. "Please, Mr. Johnson, I do not have a time machine."
"You just said you can send me back through time."
"In effect, Sir; in effect. Physically, no. My machine—temporal transgressor I call it, for want of a better term—my machine has the faculty of liberating a certain part of the human id, the conscience, the soul, if you please, and casting it adrift on the broad temporal stream. A strong will can direct this liberated 'something' against the general drift of the temporal stream, forcing it backwards against the natural current. Back through time, as it were."
"And just how does this help me?"
"From the limited experiments I have been able to perform with available funds, I have found that, shall we say from now on, for simplicity's sake, the Id, tends to gravitate to early versions of itself. Apparently there is some sort of force that binds the Id with itself. At moments of crisis, this force is strongest."
"And you want me to be a guinea pig for your experiments."
"Crudely put, Sir."
"But the truth."
Cavendish shrugged. "Consider the benefits to be reaped."
"As yet, I have seen none," said Johnson, bluntly. "Suppose you enlighten me some more."