Noel M. Loomis

“ The idea of sending a man back in time to re-do a job he's botched, so that a deadline can still be met—added to the thought of duplicating a man so there'll be two doing the same work at the same time—adds up to a production-manager's dream. But any dream can suddenly shift into a nightmare....
The receivers, two of them lawyers, had long faces when they sat down across from my desk in the office of the Imperial Printing Company. ”

“ But High-Pockets—or one of him—spoke up. "Is it your intention," he asked me, "to keep the time-machine and the extender?"
"No," I said. "I rather thought I'd get rid of the whole business; it's much too complicated. Anyway, you boys out there came through with superhuman efforts this afternoon. I don't think I'd ask you to be in two places at once again."
High-Pockets turned to the lawyer. "If the receivers agree to let the plant operate as long as it shows a profit," he said, "we'll all go back together and then you can break up the extender and there won't be any more trouble. ”

“ Shane will destroy the machine, we are agreeable to the plant's continuance as a printing office."
"Hooray!" I said, and nine High-Pocketses yelled hooray.
I was exultant. I shook hands with each one of the High-Pocketses as they filed into the extender. When there was only one left; he shook hands with me.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Nothing at all," said High-Pockets Jones. "Just got a call this morning from a print-shop where they're trying to make the men wear roller-skates so they can move faster. Guess they need me down there. So long, boss." ”

“ If they should close the plant now, I'd have a black eye. You can't go around asking for a job and saying, "But I was making money for them." They'll wonder what else was wrong.
I thought I knew why they were so willing to close the plant; it was part of an estate, and the way things were, it took a lot of their time each month for not too big a fee. But if the estate should be liquidated—well, figure it out yourself. This business was all mixed up between an administratorship and a receivership, and the attorney's fees for liquidation would be a percentage of a hundred-thousand-dollar shop. ”

“ The only thing that bothered me was that we hadn't started the big job yet.
The next morning I saw a new face at the keyboard of one of our linecasting machines. I had long ago adopted democracy as a good policy, so now I stopped to introduce myself. "I'm J. J. Shane, the manager."
His hands, with incredibly long fingers, had been just flowing over the keyboard—that is the only way to describe it—with the long fingers moving down an inch or so whenever they were above the right key, and doing it all so smoothly it was hard to realize he was actually composing lines. ”

“ This is merely a modern device to assure continuous production in the composing-room by eliminating lost time from sickness and accidents. As you know, if a linotype operator is ill, his machine goes untouched. That day's production is lost. At a cost per man of around ten dollars an hour, that represents a considerable loss. ”

“ If anybody ever tells you they can't get seventeen hundred galleys of type a day out of six linecasting machines—well, they just don't know High-Pockets Jones.
"Of course," he said apologetically, "they'll want to be paid." ”

“ We piped lucite to every place where a man worked, and so we could throw a switch in the inner office and check on every man in the shop without their knowing it. That was a very clever device; it really put the men on the spot. ”

“ It had to be delivered exactly one week before the deadline that had been set by the receivers for closing the plant. I very nearly turned it down, but Dr. Hudson's eyes glittered when he saw it. "Just what we need," he said.
"That's almost two thousand galleys of type," I reminded him, "besides our regular stuff." I was very dubious.
But Dr. Hudson was enthusiastic. "We'll make history," he promised.
Well, we did. Union or not, the men would have to learn to do things the modern way. That is what I told the chairman when he protested against having the men go back in time to set a job over. ”

“ High-Pockets Jones had walked into the cabinet a second time, and his double had worked the controls and produced a third. Well, this could get confusing, but I stayed calm. "You're a floor-man, too, aren't you?" ”

“ I'd been waiting for that. "Let him go to work," I said. "We need an operator today, anyway; Bill Smith has the flu. I will guarantee to pay a man's wages to whomever you say, if this is found to be illegal." ”

“ He opened the cabinet and showed them a comfortable leather seat inside.
"There are two compartments in this cabinet," he said. "All this machine does is to produce, temporarily, an extra man to fill the sick man's place. One of the men present steps in here; I close the door, see that the machine is charged here on the other side with plenty of linotype metal to provide the material of atomic synthesis, press the button, and lo!—the man in the chair is duplicated on the other side of the cabinet."
High-Pockets Jones stepped forward with his deep eyes fixed on Dr. ”