"Your punch!" They rose, glowering at each other. "Listen, bub, that there is my own Sunday punch, copyrighted, patented and incorporated! But this ain't gettin' us nowhere."
"No, it ain't. What do we do now? I don't care if I have to fight you for the next million years, but I was paid to move that rock and I'm goin' to move it."
McCarthy shifted the quid of tobacco. "Looky here. You've been paid to move that rock by Professor Ruddle or Guggles or whatever he is by now. If I go back and get a note from him saying you're not to move that rock and you can keep the check anyways, will you promise to squat still until I get back?"
The stranger chewed and spat, chewed and spat. McCarthy marveled at their perfect synchronization. They both spat the same distance, too. He wasn't such a bad guy, if only he wouldn't be so stubborn! Strange—he was wearing a camera like the one old Ruddle had taken from him.
"O.K. You go back and get the note. I'll wait here." The stranger dropped to the ground and stretched out.
McCarthy turned and hurried back to the time machine before he could change his mind.
He was pleased to notice as he stepped down into the laboratory again, that the professor had rewon his gentle patch of white hair.
"Saaay, this is gettin' real complicated. How'd you make out with the wife?"
"Wife? What wife?"