n a party line,
but did make it possible for a man to talk to himself ten days in the
future.

Or the past.

"Hello!" said Sam, up at the top of the telephone pole. "Sam, this is
you."

A voice he knew perfectly well sounded in the receiver.

"_Huh? Who's that?_"

"This is you," said Sam. "You, Sam Yoder. Don't you recognize your own
voice? This is you, Sam Yoder, calling from the twelfth of July. Don't
hang up!"

He heard Rosie gasp, all the way down there in the banged-up telephone
truck. Sam had seen the self-evident, at last, and now, in the twelfth
of July, he was talking to himself on the telephone. Only instead of
talking to himself in the week after next, he was talking to himself in
the week before last--he being, back there ten days before, working on
this very same telephone line on this very same pole. And it was the
same conversation, word for word.

* * * * *

When he came down the pole, rather expansively, Rosie grabbed him and
wept.

"Oh, Sam!" she sobbed. "It was you all the time!"

"Yeah," said Sam complacently. "I figured it out last night. That me
back there in the second of July, he's cussing me out. And he's going to
tell you about it and you're going to get all wrought up. But I can make
that dumb me back yonder do what has to be done. And you and me, Rosie,
have got a lot of money coming to us. I'm going to carry on through so
he'll earn it for us. But I'm warning you, Rosie, he'll be back at my
house waiting for me to talk to him tonight, and I've got to be home to
tell him to go over to your house. I'm goin' to say 'ha-ha, ha-ha' at
him."

"A-all right," said Rosie, wide-eyed. "You can."

"But I remember that when I call me up tonight, back there ten days ago,
I'm going to be right busy here and now. I'm going to make me mad,
because I don't want to waste time talking to myself back yonder.
Remember? Now what," asked Sam mildly, "would I be doing tonight that
would make me not want to waste time talking to myself ten days ago? You
got any ideas, Rosie?"

"Sam Yoder! I wouldn't! I never heard of such a thing!"

Sam looked at her and shook his head regretfully. "Too bad. If you
won't, I guess I've got to call me up in the week after next and find
out what's cooking."

"You--you _shan't_!" said Rosie fiercely. "I'll get even with you! But
you shan't talk to that--" Then she wailed. "Darn you, Sam! Even if I do
have to marry you so you'll be want