“The trouble is my mind is brilliant. I can conceive concepts beyond ordinary people. Only, Harry, I can’t conceive ways of making money. It’s a talent I do not have.”

“Bad,” I said, not lying at all.

“So I come to you as a lawyer.”

I sniggered a little deprecating snigger.

“I come to you,” he went on, “to make you help me with your crooked, lying, sneaking, dishonest lawyer’s brain.”

I filed the remark, mentally, under unexpected compliments and said, “I love you, too, Uncle Otto.”

He must have sensed the sarcasm because he turned purple with rage and yelled, “Don’t be touchy. Be like me, patient, understanding, and easygoing, lumphead. Who says anything about you as a man? As a man, you are an honest dunderkopf, but as a lawyer, you have to be a crook. Everyone knows that.”

I sighed. The Bar Association warned me there would be days like this.

“What’s your new Effect, Uncle Otto?” I asked.

He said, “I can reach back into Time and bring things out of the past.”

I acted quickly. With my left hand I snatched my watch out of the lower left vest pocket and consulted it with all the anxiety I could work up. With my right hand I reached for the telephone.

“Well, Uncle,” I said heartily, “I just remembered an extremely important appointment I’m already hours late for. Always glad to see you. And now, I’m afraid I must say good-bye. Yes, sir, seeing you has been a pleasure, a real pleasure. Well, good-bye. Yes, sir -”

I failed to lift the telephone out of its cradle. I was pulling up all right, but my uncle Otto’s hand was on mine and pushing down. It was no contest. Have I said my uncle Otto was once on the Heidelberg wrestling team in ’32?

He took hold of my elbow gently (for him) and I was standing. It was a great saving of muscular effort (for me).

“Let’s” he said, “to my laboratory go.”

He to his laboratory went. And since I had neither the knife nor the inclination to cut my left arm off at the shoulder, I to his laboratory went also…