st ten, he was fixing Mr. Broaddus' telephone when he
remembered about the man he was supposed to get a good look at, sitting
in a car in front of the bank. He made an angry resolution not, under
any circumstances, to glance outside of the lawyer's office. He
meditated savagely that, by this resolution, the schemes of his other
self in the future were abolished.

Naturally, he presently went to the window and looked to see what he was
abolishing.

* * * * *

There was a car before the bank with a reddish-haired man sitting in it.
A haze came out of the exhaust, showing that the motor was running. None
of this impressed Sam as remarkable. But as he looked, two other men
came running out of the bank. One of them carried a bag and both of them
had revolvers out and they piled into the car and the reddish-haired man
gunned it and it was abruptly a dwindling speck in a cloud of dust,
getting out of town.

[Illustration]

Three seconds later, old Mr. Bluford, president of the bank, came out
yelling, and the cashier came after him, and it was a first-rate bank
robbery they were yelling about. The men in the get-away car had
departed with thirty-five thousand dollars.

All of it had taken place so fast that Sam hardly realized what had
happened when he went out to see what it was all about, and was
instantly seized upon to do some work. The bankrobbers had shot out the
telephone cable out of town with a shotgun, so word couldn't get ahead
of them. Sam was needed to re-establish communications with the outside
world.

He did, absorbedly reflecting on the details of the robbery as he'd
heard them. He was high up on a telephone pole and the sheriff and
enthusiastic citizens were streaking past in cars to make his labors
unnecessary, when the personal aspect of all this affair hit him.

[Illustration]

"Migawd!" gasped Sam, shocked. "That me in the middle of next week told
me to come over here and watch a bank robbery! But he didn't let on what
was going to happen so's I could stop it!" He felt an incredulous
indignation come over him. "I woulda been a hero!" he said resentfully.
"Rosie woulda admired me! _That other me is a born crook!_"

Then he realized the facts. The other him was himself, only a week and a
half distant. The other him was so far sunk in dastardliness that he
permitted a crime to take place, feeling no more than sardonic
amusement.

And there was nothing he himself c