Time Travel: Many Happy Returns

They try to find someone who can tell them where they are and approach a man with a horse and carriage, but the man doesn’t speak English. With some exchange of utterances, they understand that someone down the road speaks English.

They hop a ride on the carriage which stops in front of a Clock Maker store with signage in English. They think their ride is for gratis, but find that the carriage driver expects to be paid. Rufus tries to give the driver an American dollar, but it is not recognized as currency and he is angry. An officer hears the ruckus of the driver yelling and takes Rufus into custody.

Clive, the man who speaks English, agrees to go down to the courthouse to assist in translating. Rufus is jailed, and the judge assigns a fine, which neither of the brothers can pay, but he will accept gold.

Roy decides he must get back to the U.S. in order to pawn whatever he can to raise money to buy enough gold, and then return to pay his brother’s fine. Clive agrees to accompany him on his return trip to the U.S., and Roy follows the directions of the machine to “Return Home.”

Roy accomplishes withdrawing all their cash and pawning enough merchandise to convert it to gold for their return trip. They return to Spain, and rush to the courthouse to pay Rufus’ fine, but the amount of the fine has gone up because payment was delayed. Roy offers a gold chain and a locket as additional payment, and Rufus is a free man to return to the United States.

Roy and Rufus go back to work, and everything returns to normal until they are called into the office. They are questioned by a detective about some items that were found in Spain at an archaeological site where some artifacts were stolen. They are taken to jail, but are released until formal charges can be brought against them.

Roy and Rufus decide that they should liquidate all of their assets, including their home, in case they are found guilty, so they would have money when they got out of jail. They store their gold in their maintenance locker at the university and science lab.

When a police order and warrant arrive at their work place, they are asked to demonstrate what they did with this remarkable time machine that took them to Spain. They gathered up all of their gold and carried it with them when doing the demonstration.

Feeling that there is no way they can win their case, they make a hasty decision to let the Computer Unit take them back to Spain. The onlookers, who are chuckling among themselves about the claims of the equipment, stand in awe as the machine disappears. Then there is silence. Absolute and complete silence.