could be a millionaire in
a month."

"Joe," I says, suddenly frightened, "don't do it. Look what happened
here in Fremont. Why man, if you put those things all over the country
there wouldn't be a soul left in the United States after a month had
gone by."

"You're right, Harry," he says. "Absolutely right." And he takes a
cigarette lighter out of his pocket and sets fire to the papers and
lets them burn 'til they're nothing but ashes.

"What are you gonna do with the booths in town?" I ask.

He goes down to the basement and comes up with a hatchet. "Come on,"
he says grimly. "I'll show you what I'm going to do with them!"

The first two we chop in small pieces until the walk is covered with
cogs and wheels and smashed tubes and dials. We stop at the third one.
That was the fanciest one of all, with the leather upholstery inside
and the big red neon sign on top that you could read halfway across
town.

Joe stares at it for a long minute, then makes up his mind. He fishes
around in his pocket for a coin.

"What do you think you're going to do?" I asks, alarmed.

"I'm going to look for Marge," he says. "I need a vacation anyways."

"How you gonna find her, Joe?" I asks. "You don't even know what kind
of a world to look for!"

"Yes, I do," Joe says wistfully. "It'll be the kind of world where
Marge always wanted to spend a vacation. Some place like up in
Massachusetts during the summer. White beaches, little wooden houses,
fishing boats and lobster pots.... She's described it to me so often I
could picture it down to the last pebble on the beach."

He gets into the booth.

"Think you'll ever be back, Joe?" I asks.

He drops a quarter in the coin slot and a picture builds up on the
screen of a beach with a little town in the distance.

"Sure," Joe says confidentially. "We'll be back." And then there's a
flash of blue light and Joe's gone, too.

I hung around for a couple of days afterward but Joe and Marge never
came back. I think he found her all right but Marge didn't want
anything to do with the old world so they just stayed there.

And that's about all there is, son. Except I've often wondered what
happened when strangers drove through and found Fremont a ghost
town....

* * * * *

Now, lookahere, son, it's no cause for you to go calling me a liar
just because you never heard of Stellar Electric and Fremont ain't
listed on any map you've got. You didn't expect me to