I was getting used to it, almost blasé. The second dream had come two months after the first and I somehow took it for granted that the third would come after another two months.
It didn't. It came after a single month. There was the usual sensation of not belonging, of floating in a separate universe of my own and I knew that Ben Franklin was there even before I quite focused my eyes on his image.
I made a motion as though to sit up and then decided not to. I was comfortable as I was. It was not too warm in the bedroom and so I kept my blanket up to my neck and contented myself with bringing my arms out for the sensation of greater freedom which that gave me.
"I suppose, Mr. Franklin," I said, "that again only one night has passed for you."
"It is the night of January 2, 1790," he said, smiling.
"My birthday," I muttered.
"Surely not the day you were born," he said. "The day of the year on which you were born, you mean."
"Yes. My age on your day there is exactly minus one hundred and thirty."
"Then," he said, looking at me with clear amusement, "since we speak of the Bicentennial of our country as approaching, you are not quite a young man."
I stirred uneasily. "Not quite an old man, either, but I have been younger."
"So have we all, good friend," he sighed. "When you are my age...."
"You have at least reached it," I said, a little irritated at the turn of the discussion. "I may not."
"Well, well," said Franklin. "Let that be as it may, and let us return, as my late friend M. Voltaire would say, to our sheep. We have decided, have we not, good sir, that the coming two hundredth anniversary of our nation should be, in fact, a world celebration of the principle of unity. As the United States has made the union of thirteen states a working proposition--and many more than that, afterward; fifty I think you said."
"Quite right," I said.
Franklin's old head nodded with satisfaction. "I remember perfectly. It is a relief that I can do so. During the day, all this seems a vague dream, and I lose it. I remember only enough to tell me that there is some happiness I wish to tell my friends and I do not remember what it is. It is only when night comes that I remember again that the United States will flourish and grow; that it will be rich and powerful and great. At night I forget nothing you tell me.
)
