. It
told him precisely what it wanted him to do. And then, very kindly, it
told him exactly where the two breaks in the line were. And then it rang
off.

* * * * *

He sweated when he looked at the first of the two places. A joining was
bad and he fixed that. It was where his voice had said it would be. And
that was as impossible as anything else.

When he'd fixed the second break, Sam called Central and told her he was
sick and was going home, and that if there were any other phones that
needed fixing today, people were probably better off without phone
service, anyhow.

He went home and washed his face, and made himself a brew of coffee and
drank it, and his memory turned out to be unimpaired. Presently he heard
himself muttering.

So he said defiantly, "There ain't any crazy people in my family, so it
ain't likely I've gone out of my head. But God knows nobody but Rosie
knows about me telling her sentimental that her nose is so cute, I
couldn't believe she ever had to blow it! Maybe it was me, talking to
myself!"

Talking to oneself is not abnormal. Lots of people do it. Sam missed out
the conclusion to be drawn from the fact that he'd answered himself
back.

He reasoned painfully, "If somebody drove over to Rappahannock, past
Dunnsville, and telephoned back that there was a brush fire at
Dunnsville, I wouldn't be surprised to get to Dunnsville and find a
brush fire there. So if somebody phones back from next Tuesday that Mr.
Broaddus broke his leg next Tuesday--why, I shouldn't be surprised to
get to next Tuesday and find he done it. Going to Rappahannock, past
Dunnsville, and going to next Thursday, past next Tuesday, ain't so much
difference. It's only the difference between a road-map and a calendar."

Then he began to see implications. He blinked.

"Yes, sir!" he said in awe. "I wouldn't've thought of it if I hadn't
told myself on the telephone, but there _is_ money to be made out of
this! I must be near as smart as Rosie thinks I am! I'd better get that
dinkus set up!"

He'd more or less half-heartedly worked out an idea of how a party-line
telephone conversation could be made private, and just out of instinct,
you might say, he'd accumulated around his house a lot of stuff that
should have been on the phone company's inventory. There were condensers
and transmitters and selective-ringing bells and resistances and the
like. He'd meant to put some of them together so