"And then?" cried the two women together.
"Ef you'll believe me, there we was back to the day he fust come--an' fust thing I knew, thet future-man was a-comin' up to my back door, same ez before, a-beggin' to hev his foot fixed. It was hard on him, but I was convinced fer keeps."
Copernicus shook his head sadly, with retrospective sadness.
"An' where is the future-man now?" Phoebe asked.
"Tuk cold on his lungs at the North Pole," said Droop, solemnly. "Hed pneumonia an' up'n died."
"But there warn't nobody round heerd of him except you," said Rebecca. "Who buried him?"
"Ah, thet's one o' the beauties o' the hull business. He'd showed me all the ropes on his machine--his Panchronicon, as he called it--an' so I up'n flew round the North Pole the opposite way as soon's he passed away, till I'd made up the five weeks we'd lost. Then when I got back it was five weeks after his funeral, an' I didn't hev to bother about it."
The two sisters looked at each other, quite overcome with admiration.
"My land!" Rebecca murmured, gathering up her yarn and knitting again. "Sence they've invented them X-rays an' took to picturin' folks' insides, I kin believe anythin'."
"You don't hev to take my word fer it," Droop exclaimed. "Ef you'll come right along with me this blessed minute, I'll show you the machine right now."
"I'd jest love to see it," said Rebecca, her coldness all forgotten, "but it's mos' too late fer this afternoon. There's the supper to get, you know, an'----"
"But the plan, Rebecca," Phoebe cried. "You've forgotten that I haven't heard Mr. Droop's plan."
"I wish 't you'd call me 'Cousin Copernicus,'" said Droop, earnestly. "You know I've sworn off--quit drinkin' now."
Phoebe blushed at his novel proposal and insisted on the previous question.
"Why, my idea is this, Cousin Phoebe. I want we should all go back to 1876 again. Thet's the year your sister could hev married Joe Chandler ef she'd wanted to."
Rebecca murmured something unintelligible, blushing furiously, with her eyes riveted to her knitting. Phoebe looked surprised.
"You know you could, Cousin Rebecca," Droop insisted. "Now what I say is, let's go back there. I'll invent the graphophone, the kodak, the vitascope, an' Milliken's cough syrup an' a lot of other big modern inventions. Rebecca'll marry Chandler, an' she an' her husband can back up my big inventions with capital. Why, Cousin Phoebe," he cried, with enthusiasm, "we'll all hev a million apiece!"