"Justin—Charles Justin," he said. "I must ask you to accept some of my story on its face—otherwise I fear you will find it incredible. However, I think I may be of use to you."
"I'll be glad to hear ye out—if ye take not too long," said Adams, indicating the papers on his desk.
Justin decided to plunge directly into his proposition. He said, "To what use would you be able to put a man who could foretell the future in your behalf?"
Adams' face became hard as flint. He said, "I know not who ye be or whence ye come—but I ha' not the time to sit and listen to such childish prattle."
"Please, Mr. Adams—I shan't take long," Justin put in desperately. "I'm a Bostonian like yourself but I come from a different time—from two centuries in the future to be exact."
Something in the sincerity of his plea won Justin a reprieve. "Very well, Master—Justin—if that be ye'r name. Ye'r accent is odd enough to account for such a story—not that I credit ye with truth for a moment. Since ye know so much of what ye term ye'r past, mayhap ye can tell me something of mine own."
Justin said, "You and your father made the first open attacks on the Crown, following the return of Louisburg to France in seventeen forty-six after its capture by Massachusetts men. You have run through a fine inheritance and are incapable of conducting any sort of business because your interest lies in politics. You graduated several notches higher in your class in Harvard than your young cousin John of Braintree.
"At the moment you are seeking some means of renewing the fight against the Crown. You are in the process of organizing the North and South End mobs of Boston to that purpose, uniting them into a controllable body that will obey your commands. Will Molineux, in the next room, is one of your chief aides...."
"Thus far ye have told me nothing that is not common knowledge." But Adams frowned slightly as he spoke.
"Is it generally known how well you have organized the mobs, Mr. Adams?" said Justin. "Is it generally known that you are counting, perhaps at this very moment, upon the enforcement of Writs of Assistance to re-rouse the opposition to the Crown that has lain dormant so long?