At the same time, Diggs poked George and pointed to his own lap where a small cassette recorder was balanced on his knees. He turned it on to record.

Window-Monarch’s face was grave. He said softly, “I’d like to believe that somehow or other I was speaking with George, The George, who initiated the Codicils into the world. Are you The George?”

George couldn’t rid his face of its embarrassed perplexity. He wanted to say, “No, and I’m not Judas either!” But with some surprise he heard his voice respond differently: “Hell, I know about the Codicils,” he said.

As he spoke, George heard Seven gasp. At the same time, Window’s eyes certainly seemed to belong to someone else. They stared urgently at George. “I had the worst feeling that … something had happened in the past,” Monarch said softly. “As if probabilities were changing. As if I had to contact you in your present time … I’ll try again soon. I’m not as good at this as I should be—” As the words faded, Window’s eyes lost the intentness. Himself again, he said, “That time I almost saw something … through someone else’s eyes—”

But Seven was on his feet. “George, what do you know about the Codicils?” he asked. “Quickly.”

“What is this?” asked George, bewildered. “When he said ‘Codicils,’ I just remembered seeing the word on the title page of one of my grandfather’s old journals in the attic someplace. That’s all—The Codicils. That was the title of one of his journals. He labeled them all; I don’t even know if they’re still up there.”

And Seven cried, “They’ve got to be.”

When Seven was with mortals, he had to act like them as much as possible so as not to give himself away. It was with considerable relief then that he rushed up to the attic, after getting George’s permission to search for his grandfather’s old journals. George, Window, and Diggs were off to bed in the second floor bedrooms.

Seven went into the attic, turned on the light, and closed the door behind him. The steady thumping of his heart distracted him (“All that racket,” he cried), so he stepped out of his twentieth-century body after arranging it neatly on the old cot that stood by the window. He wondered if that cot was in another time occupied by another body—George the First’s, for example?