"Oh my God!" screamed Candy, "It’s him!"

"Don’t be afraid General Washington," said the Bachelor.

"Oh, I’m not afraid," replied Washington.

"Okay – how did you do this one? Get an actor? He doesn't really look like his pictures," scoffed Edna.

"Oh, I don’t know," said Herbert and took out a one dollar bill from his wallet to check.

"Look to save time," said Washington wearily, "I really am George Washington and your friend here really did come and get me from the past. Why is it whenever anyone in the future invents a time machine they always come and get me as proof?"

"You mean, you’ve been to the future before?" asked the Bachelor.

"The future, the past. Do you want to see some pic’s?"

Edna, Herbert, Candy and the Bachelor gathered around as the first President made himself comfortable on a bean-bag. From his battle coat he withdrew a small pile of photographs.

When they had finished looking through Washington’s happy snaps of his journeys through time, the Bachelor offered to take him back. In a flash, they were gone.

"I’m beginning to believe him," said Herbert.

"I’m still not so sure," said Edna, "I mean, if time travel were possible, why haven’t we met any visitors from the future, or the past. Those photos could have been mocked up."

"They looked real enough to me," said Candy, "Here he comes again."

"Sorry I took a bit longer than usual," said The Bachelor, "But I stopped off along the way to prove my invention another way."

Edna lit another cigarette, "I bet I can guess. You changed some history."

The Bachelor nodded and walked into the kitchen. When he returned he was carrying a bag of confectionary.

"Can anyone tell me what this is?" asked the Bachelor.

"It looks like candy," said Herbert.

"Precisely," said the Bachelor.

There was a moment’s pause while the guests thought over this, and poured another drink. Edna and Herbert were close to understanding when Candy surprised them all. "You went back in time and invented candy and named it after me!"

"I did."

"That’s ridiculous," said Edna, "An absolute coincidence that candy has her namesake. Why, candy has been around for at least two hundred years!"

"Two hundred and twenty-three," corrected the Bachelor.

"But it’s been called candy since… since…" stumbled Edna.

"Since I altered history."

Herbert, for the first time that night, put down his drink and spoke seriously. " It might surprise you to know that I know one or two things about time travel myself. You are in the company of the man who wrote Time Fighters II and Aliens From Future World."

"Of course I realise," said the Bachelor, "That’s why you’re here."

"Well one of the reasons I think this is all phoney is because of the… let’s say confusion time travel can cause."

"Such as?"

"Well – let’s say you want to visit yourself. If you go into the past and say, ‘Hello, I’m from the future’ the you in the past will know that in the future you will build a time machine and do that. But... say you don’t want to. You have no choice because it’s already happened."

"Go on," said the Bachelor.

"And, likewise, what if you wanted to visit yourself in the future. You would say, ‘Hello, I’m from the past’ but that you in the future as already lived that time travel so they know what’s going on. Am I making any sense?"

"Want another drink?" asked Candy.

The Bachelor stood up. "He’s got a point, I think. There’s only one way to find out what would happen if I visited myself. I’ll go into the future. But first, I’ll go into the kitchen and get dessert. I feel like some of that spongecake."

The others looked at each other in silence.