“No dizziness,” the doctor was saying, “even in an upright position. No problem with motor skills.”

“We noticed his muscle tone was excellent.”

“True,” he said. “Still and all, it’s quite miraculous. Theory is one thing, but when you see it right before your eyes-”

I turned on him. “All right,” I said savagely, “who’s the president?”

“Mr. Tanner, I believe I told you-”

“I know what you told me, and I know what the mirror’s telling me, and the two don’t go together.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t suppose they do.”

“Who’s the president?”

“William Jefferson Clinton.”

“And what’s the date?”

“March fourteenth.”

“Well, that’s good. I haven’t missed St. Patrick’s Day. What year?”

“Mr. Tanner-”

“What year?”

“ 1997,” he said.

“ 1997.”

“Yes.”

“March 14, 1997.”

“Yes. It’s a Friday.”

“I drank a glass of brandy on Tuesday and woke up on a Friday. That would be remarkable enough, but this particular Friday happens to be twenty-five years later. Well, twenty-four and a half, anyway. It’s like Rip Van Winkle, isn’t it?”

“Sort of,” he said. She looked puzzled, and I wondered if she knew who Rip Van Winkle was. She was young enough to have trouble remembering who Nixon and Agnew were, so how could you expect her to cope with Washington Irving?

“Except it’s not,” I said. “He slept for twenty years, and he woke up with a long white beard. I don’t even need a shave. Or have you people been shaving me?”

“No, we haven’t.”

“So presidents have come and gone, and my beard hasn’t grown at all. That’s hard to believe. As far as I can tell, I’m not a day older than I was when I drank that brandy. I gather there must have been a drug in it, but was there also an eyedropper’s worth of water from the fountain of youth?”