“Hmm, my, you should take this to the security guards, hmm, there’s quite a bit of cash in here, yes,” the man wears thick glasses and peers at Henry through them as he speaks and Henry reaches around under the man’s jacket and steals his wallet. Since Henry is wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt I walk behind him and he passes the wallet to me. The tall thin brown-suited man points at the stairs, explaining to Henry how to turn in the wallet. Henry toddles off in the direction the man has indicated, and I follow, overtake Henry and lead him right through the museum to the entrance and out, past the guards, onto Michigan Avenue and south, until we end up, grinning like fiends, at the Artists Cafe, where we treat ourselves to milkshakes and french fries with some of our ill-gotten gains. Afterwards we throw all the wallets in a mailbox, sans cash, and I get us a room at the Palmer House.

　“So?” I ask, sitting on the side of the bathtub watching Henry brush his teeth.

　“ What?” returns Henry with a mouth full of toothpaste.

　“What do you think?”

　He spits. “About what?”

　“Pick-pocketing.”

　He looks at me in the mirror. “It’s okay.” He turns and looks directly at me. “I did it!” He grins, largely.

　“You were brilliant!”

　“Yeah!” The grin fades. “Henry, I don’t like to time travel by myself. It’s better with you. Can’t you always come with me?”

　He is standing with his back to me, and we look at each other in the mirror. Poor small self: at this age my back is thin and my shoulder blades stick out like incipient wings. He turns, waiting for an answer, and I know what I have to tell him—me. I reach out and gently turn him and bring him to stand by me, so we are side by side, heads level, facing the mirror.

　“Look.” We study our reflections, twinned in the ornate gilt Palmer House bathroom splendor. Our hair is the same brown-black, our eyes slant dark and fatigue-ringed identically,