Time and Again by Jack Finney, Paul Hecht Page B

side of the street to the other, steering with one hand, expertly throwing a folded paper up onto each porch. As he approached the complete house, the man on the porch stood up, the boy tossed the paper, the man caught it, and sat down again, unfolding it. The boy threw a paper onto the porch of the false two-walled house next door, which stood on a corner. Then he pedaled around the corner, and — out of sight of the man on the porch now — got off his bike and walked it to a door in the area wall against which the little cross street abruptly ended. He opened the door and wheeled his bike on through it.
    I couldn't see what lay on the other side of the door, but a man immediately came through it, closing it behind him. Then he walked toward the corner putting on a hard-topped, flat-brimmed straw hat with a black band. His white shirt collar was open, his tie pulled down, and he was carrying his suit coat. From five stories above the man's head Rube and I watched him stop just short of the corner, shove his hat to the back of his head, sling his suit coat over one shoulder, and bring a wadded-up handkerchief from his back pocket. Dabbing at his forehead with the handkerchief, he began to walk tiredly, and turned the corner to move slowly along the brick sidewalk past the man on the porch, who sat reading his paper.
    "Listen," said Rube, cupping a hand beside his ear, and I did the same. From far below but clearly enough, we heard the man on the sidewalk say, "Evening, Mr. McNaughton. Hot enough for you?" The man on the porch looked up from his paper. "Oh, hello, Mr. Drexsler. Yeah, it's another scorcher; paper says more of the same tomorrow." Still trudging by, a hot tired man on his way home from work, the man on the sidewalk shook his head ruefully. "Well, it has to end sometime," he said, and the man on the porch nodded, smiling, and said, "Maybe by Christmas."
    The man on the sidewalk turned, cut across the street at an angle, climbed the steps of one of the false fronts across the street, and opened a screen door. "Edna!" he called. "I'm home." The screen door slammed behind him, and we watched him climb down a short ladder, duck under the scaffolding behind, and open a door in the wall. He walked through it, and it swung silently closed behind him.
    In the false front next to this a screen door opened, and a woman walked out onto the porch and picked up the folded newspaper. She unfolded it and stood glancing over the front page; she was wearing an unusually long blue-checked housedress, its hem no more than a foot from the ground. At the sound of her opening screen door, the man on the porch across the street had glanced up momentarily, then gone back to his paper. Now, his arms spreading wide, he opened his paper, then folded it back to an inside page. The woman across the street walked back into the false front, carrying her paper. Propped in a curtained window beside her front door was a foot-square blue card printed in block letters, and I leaned forward a little, straining to read it. "It says ICE," Rube said. "On each edge is printed 25, 50, 75, or 100. You set the card in your window so that the number of pounds of ice you want the iceman to deliver when he comes along your street is at the top of the card."
    I turned to look at Rube's face, but he was watching the scene below, forearms on the guardrail, his hands clasped loosely together. I said, "I don't see a camera but I assume you're either making or rehearsing some kind of movie down there." I couldn't help sounding a little bit irritated.
    "No," said Rube. "The man on the porch is actually living in that house. It's complete inside, and a middle-aged woman comes in to cook and clean for him. Groceries are delivered every day in a light horse-drawn wagon labeled HENRY DORTMUND, FANCY GROCERIES. Twice a day a mailman in a gray uniform delivers mail, mostly ads. The man is waiting to hear whether he's been hired for any of several jobs he's applied for in