e me the most interesting
life a man ever lived, make no mistake about that.

"I'm dead, Danny. Yep, old Uncle Averill is dead. Because this
tape-recorder won't be left you in my will until I am dead. But, no
regrets, boy. I had a great life. How great--nobody knows. Only you,
you're about to find out. Do you believe? Do you believe the way I have
in mind? Make no mistake about it now, son. If you don't believe, you
might as well burn these spools and go home."

Danny considered. He remembered what had happened in his history class.
Wasn't that the sort of faith Uncle Averill had in mind? Faith not to
believe in historical fairy tales? Faith to doubt when one ought to
doubt? Faith to be skeptical....

"Good," said the voice from the past. "Then you're still here. Look in
front of you, Danny-boy. The trunk. The old steamer. Know what it is?"

"No," Danny said, then clamped a hand over his mouth. For a moment he
had actually believed he was talking to the dead man.

"It's a time machine," said his Uncle's voice.

There was a silence. The tape went on winding. For a moment, Danny
thought that was all. Then the voice continued: "No, your old
grand-uncle isn't nuts, Danny. It's a time machine. I know it's a time
machine because I used it all my life. You expected some kind of
complicated gadget down here, I know. I made everybody think it was a
gadget. Going down to your basement and tinkering with a gadget is fine
in our culture. Hell's fire, boy, it's approved behavior. But locking a
bank-vault door behind you and curling up in a steamer trunk, that isn't
approved. Now, is it?

"I'll tell you about this here time machine, sonny. It isn't a machine
at all, in the strict sense of the word. You can see that. It's
just--well, an empty box. But it works, and what else ought a fellow to
care about.

"Funny how I got it. I was eighteen or twenty, maybe. And my
Grand-uncle Daniel gave it to me. Daniel, get me. Daniel to Averill to
Daniel. So when you have a grand-nephew, see that his name's Averill,
understand? Keep it going, Danny. Because this trunk is old. A lot older
than you think.

"And you can travel through time in it. Don't look at me like that, I
know what you're thinking. There isn't any such thing as time travel. In
the strict sense of the word, it's impossible. You can't resurrect the
past or peek into the unborn future. Well, I don't know about the
future, but I do know about the past. But you got to have