r.

"Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Grange. It's all right. You see, Uncle
Averill wasn't a young man. He must have been in his eighties."

"Were you very close to him, Danny?"

"No, not for a long time. When I was a kid--"

Mrs. Grange smiled.

"Well, when I was eight or nine, I used to see him all the time. We
stayed at his place on the coast near St. Augustine, Florida, for a
year. I--I feel sorry about Uncle Averill, Mrs. Grange, but I feel
better about something that happened in class today. I--I think Uncle
Averill would have approved of how I acted."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Well, it's just he always said never to take any so-called fact for
granted, especially in history. I can almost remember his voice now, the
way he used to say, 'if ever there's an argument in history, sonny, all
you ever get is the propaganda report of the side which won.' You know,
Mrs. Grange, I think he was right. Of course, a lot of folks thought old
Uncle Averill was a little queer. Touched in the head is what they
said."

"They oughtn't to say such things."

"Always tinkering around in his basement. Funny, nobody ever knew on
what. He wouldn't let anybody near the place. He had a time lock and
everything. What nobody could figure out is if he was trying so hard to
guard something that was in the basement, why did he sometimes disappear
for weeks on end without even telling anybody where he went. And I
remember," Danny went on musing, "every time he came back he went into
that harangue about history, as if somehow he had confirmed his
suspicions. He was a funny old guy but I liked him."

"You remembering him so vividly after all these years will be the best
epitaph your uncle could have, Danny. But what are you going to do?
About what he left you, I mean."

"Uncle Averill always liked promptness. If he left something for me,
he'd want me to pick it up immediately. I guess I ought to go down there
to St. Augustine as fast as I can."

"But your classes--"

"I'll have to take an emergency leave of absence."

"Under the circumstances, I'm sure the college will approve. Do you
think your uncle left you anything--well--important?"

"Important?" Danny repeated the word. "No, I don't think so. Not by the
world's standards. But it must have been important to Uncle Averill. He
was a--you know, an image-breaker--"

"An iconoclast," supplied Mrs. Grange.

"Yes'm, an iconoclast. But I liked him."

Mrs. Grange nodded. "You'd be