alk down to the station and get me a
_Times_." He dug in his trouser pocket and came out with a half dollar.
"Get anything you want for yourself, while you're at it."

Allan thanked his father and pocketed the coin.

"Mrs. Stauber'll still be at Mass," he suggested. "Say I get the paper
now; breakfast won't be ready till she gets here."

"Good idea." Blake Hartley nodded, pleased. "You'll have three-quarters
of an hour, at least."

* * * * *

So far, he congratulated himself, everything had gone smoothly.
Finishing his toilet, he went downstairs and onto the street, turning
left at Brandon to Campbell, and left again in the direction of the
station. Before he reached the underpass, a dozen half-forgotten
memories had revived. Here was a house that would, in a few years, be
gutted by fire. Here were four dwellings standing where he had last seen
a five-story apartment building. A gasoline station and a weed-grown lot
would shortly be replaced by a supermarket. The environs of the station
itself were a complete puzzle to him, until he oriented himself.

He bought a New York _Times_, glancing first of all at the date line.
Sunday, August 5, 1945; he'd estimated pretty closely. The battle of
Okinawa had been won. The Potsdam Conference had just ended. There were
still pictures of the B-25 crash against the Empire State Building, a
week ago Saturday. And Japan was still being pounded by bombs from the
air and shells from off-shore naval guns. Why, tomorrow, Hiroshima was
due for the Big Job! It amused him to reflect that he was probably the
only person in Williamsport who knew that.

On the way home, a boy, sitting on the top step of a front porch, hailed
him. Allan replied cordially, trying to remember who it was. Of course;
Larry Morton! He and Allan had been buddies. They probably had been
swimming, or playing Commandos and Germans, the afternoon before. Larry
had gone to Cornell the same year that Allan had gone to Penn State;
they had both graduated in 1954. Larry had gotten into some Government
bureau, and then he had married a Pittsburgh girl, and had become
twelfth vice-president of her father's firm. He had been killed, in
1968, in a plane crash.

"You gonna Sunday school?" Larry asked, mercifully unaware of the fate
Allan foresaw for him.

"Why, no. I have some things I want to do at home." He'd have to watch
himself. Larry would spot a difference quicker than any adult. "He