We were old friends now, Ben Franklin and I. Not, of course, that I could bring myself to address him as "Ben." He might not have minded if I had, but I couldn't. He was, after all, 214 years my senior.
He never used my name at all. He never seemed to miss its use. I'm not sure he even remembered my name. I was not an individual to him. I was a conduit into what was to him the future; a passageway that had the shape of a man but whose only use to him was as a source of information.
Since I evidently meant so little to him, I found myself absurdly pleased, on this fourth occasion, that he had thought enough of me to dress up. He was not in bed at all, in fact. He was standing proudly before me, smiling benevolently, and dressed in an outfit that gave the appearance of being new.
"Good evening, Mr. Franklin," I said, rather awed.
He looked down at himself complacently, and said, "I find that I can begin to control these meetings of ours and make them more suitable to my wishes. During this day just past, it seemed to me that I must make myself more presentable. Why I thought that, and why it seemed to me that the expenditure of several very pretty pennies on the finest broadcloth was suitable, I could not say. I believe I told you that I remember nothing of my nightly wanderings with you once day comes."
"Yes, sir."
"Yet some vague feelings do creep in, and I find now that I look at myself, I am younger than I am by day. I am perhaps not eighty-three but more nearly my prime."
I had to admit he looked very nearly like the familiar paintings of him, and said, "Are you in your bedroom, sir?"
"Indeed I am. I had blown out my candle and was ready to climb into my bed, but I do not recall that I actually did so. I find now I am standing here and I have the feeling that if I wished ardently enough I could make this contact at any time of the day and in any place. I am learning how to manipulate this out-of-time connection of ours."
"I am not," I said. "I am still in bed."
"Perhaps I shall be able to take care of that as well," said Franklin, carelessly. "I find that there is much I have yet to do. I might have made my room warmer. It is chilly of a winter night."
"I regret that, sir. Our bedrooms are warmer in these times. We have furnaces designed to maintain constant temperature in every room of the house. Whatever the temperature outside, we are warm within. My apologies, sir, that the warmth in my room cannot penetrate to yours."
"I dare say you are not to blame for the physical ramifications of this, our strange meetings of minds across the centuries. But as I recall, and sometimes I wonder if I recall correctly from one night's dream to another, our United States has increased seventy-fold in population from my time to yours."
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