"No, sir," said Thomas.
"But about lunch, sir—"
"We'll have to pay for it. Damn!" Pete said morbidly.
"I've just forty cents in my clothes, Thomas, and Arthur at least mustn't be allowed to starve.
Daisy wouldn't like it.
Let's see!"
He moved away from the desk and surveyed the laboratory with a predatory air.
It was not exactly a homey place.
There was a skeletonlike thing of iron rods, some four feet high.
Thomas had said it was a tesseract—a model of a cube existing in four dimensions instead of three.
To Pete, it looked rather like a medieval instrument of torture—something to be used in theological argument with a heretic.
Pete could not imagine anybody but his uncle wanting it.
There were other pieces of apparatus of all sizes, but largely dismantled.
They looked like the product of someone putting vast amounts of money and patience into an effort to do something which would be unsatisfactory when accomplished.
"There's nothing here to pawn," said Pete depressedly.
"Not even anything I could use for a hand organ, with Arthur substituting for the monkey!"
"There's the demonstrator, sir," said Thomas hopefully.
"Your uncle finished it, sir, and it worked, and he had a stroke, sir."
"Cheerful!" said Pete.
"What is this demonstrator?
What's it supposed to do?"
"Why, sir, it demonstrates the fourth dimension," said Thomas.
"It's your uncle's life work, sir."
"Then let's take a look at it," said Pete.
"Maybe we can support ourselves demonstrating the fourth dimension in shop windows for advertising purposes. But I don't think Daisy will care for the career."
Thomas marched solemnly to a curtain just behind the desk.
Pete had thought it hid a cupboard.
He slid the cover back and displayed a huge contrivance which seemed to have the solitary virtue of completion.
Pete could see a monstrous brass horseshoe all of seven feet high.
It was apparently hollow and full of cryptic cogs and wheels.
Beneath it there was a circular plate of inch-thick glass which seemed to be designed to revolve.
Below that, in turn, there was a massive base to which ran certain copper tubes from a refrigerating unit out of an ice box.
Thomas turned on a switch and the unit began to purr.
Pete watched.
"Your uncle talked to himself quite a bit about this, sir," said Thomas.
"I gathered that it's quite a scientific triumph, sir.
You see, sir, the fourth dimension is time."
"I'm glad to hear it explained so simply," said Pete.
"Yes, sir.
As I understand it, sir, if one were motoring and saw a pretty girl about to step on a banana peel, sir, and if one wished to tip her off, so to speak, but didn't quite realize for—say, two minutes, until one had gone on half a mile—"
"The pretty girl would have stepped on the banana peel and nature would have taken its course," said Pete.
"Except for this demonstrator, sir.
You see, to tip off the young lady one would have to retrace the half mile and the time too, sir, or one would be too late.
That is, one would have to go back not only the half mile but the two minutes.
And so your uncle, sir, built this demonstrator—"
"So he could cope with such a situation when it arose," finished Pete.
"I see!
But I'm afraid it won't settle our financial troubles."
The refrigeration unit ceased to purr.
Thomas solemnly struck a safety match.