Time Tunnel Read Online Free Page A

is no large market for snuffboxes. I’ll make a bet that these shopkeepers are too stupid to realize that work like this is different from any other curio product!”
    Harrison swallowed. He felt a suspicion. But it was totally unrealistic to think that because there had been wildly unlikely coincidences in the immediate past, that there would be more wildly unlikely ones turning up in orderly succession. Yet…
    “Pepe,” he said unhappily, “you say it would take weeks to create that snuffbox. How many did you see, and how much time would be required to make them, by hand? And you saw the guns. They are not machine-made. They are strictly hand-craft products. How many man-years of labor do they represent? And there were some books in the shop, set in type of the Napoleonic period and printed on paper that simply is not made any more. How long to make the paper and set the type and print and bind those books? And how much investment in printing replicas of even one issue of the Moniteur ? There are weeks of the Moniteur in the window, if not months! Do you think small shopkeepers could finance all this? And do you think that people who could finance such an enterprise would pick out Carroll, Dubois et Cie for their only outlet?”
    Pepe swore. Then he admitted:
    “I didn’t think of those angles. But what is the answer?”
    “I haven’t the least idea,” said Harrison unhappily. “It’s ridiculous to believe in the only explanation that would explain it.”
    “That someone travels from now to then?” Pepe snorted. “My dear fellow, that is nonsense! You know it is nonsense!”
    “I agree with you,” said Harrison regretfully. “But I’ve never noticed that being nonsensical keeps things from happening. Don’t you ever read about politics?”
    “I admit,” Pepe conceded with dignity, “that foolish things are done by governments and great men, but I cannot do anything about them! But if there is a genuine artist working for a pittance so that a French shopkeeper can make a shrewd profit out of his commercial innocence… That I can do something about!”
    “Such as what?” asked Harrison. Internally, he struggled against an appalling tendency to think in terms of the preposterous.
    “I am going to the shop again,” said Pepe sternly. “I won’t talk to your Valerie, because you saw her first. But I shall say that I want a special bit of work done, only it will be necessary for me to discuss it with the workman. These shopkeepers will see the chance to make an inordinate profit. I will pay part of it in advance. They will gloat. And I will tell this workman what an idiot he is to work for what they pay him! I will advance him money to do such work for modern millionaires! If necessary, I’ll send people to him who will pay him something adequate! Because he is an artist!”
    Harrison stared at him in alarm.
    “But look here!” he protested. “You can’t do that!”
    “Why not?”
    “Why, Valerie! We were children together! And I knew this Madame Carroll when she was a skinny virgin, trying desperately to get herself a suitable husband! She’s Valerie’s aunt and she was a tartar then and she’s worse now! Valerie lives with her! She doesn’t want Valerie to know anybody because if she married, her aunt would have to pay a decent wage for somebody to help in the shop!”
    Pepe snorted.
    “You talked to her for fifteen minutes and you have a complete picture of the difficulties to romance with her! One doesn’t learn such things unless there’s some thought of evading them!”
    Harris said indignantly:
    “But she’s a nice kid! I liked her when we were children! And dammit, I’ve been lonesome! I’m not interested in romance in the abstract, Pepe. You have to be a Frenchman or a Mexican to do that! But Valerie’s a nice kid! And I don’t want to make trouble for her!”
    “She is not allowed to know young men,” said Pepe in a detached tone. “Have you arranged to meet her, ah,