Back to the hospital room. The cartoon boy and his father sat opposite each other at the round white table. In the center of the table was a Coke can.

His father said, "No, he'd help bring it about. Peabody would want a crucifixion. He'd go back two thousand years so that he could start Christianity."

"It would be his idea?" the cartoon boy asked.

"They were all his ideas, stupid. That's what I keep telling you. The telephone, the submarine, radio, the French Revolution... Everything. They were all his. He didn't simply help history find its 'proper course' -- there is no 'proper course' -- he actually started it all. In every single episode he had to lead the so-called 'inventor' by the hand step by goddamned step andshow him how to build a telephone, a lightbulb, a submarine, whatever, and then showhim how to use the goddamned thing. Bell, Edison, Marconi, whoever, they were all chumps, bunglers, useless. Peabody was the real inventor. That fuckin' dog and his Wayback Machine did everything. It's all his."

"But he didn't take the credit? Why not? Why did he need Edison and Marconi and all those others?"

"Who knows? Mr. Peabody works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform and all that shit."

"What about Sherman?"

"What about him?"

"What did he do, Dad? Why did Peabody need him?"

"To rev up the Wayback Machine, I guess. Maybe they were fucking. I don't know."

Another cartoon boy, this one in a blue nurse's uniform, a red-headed boy with a long, freckled face, entered the room. He bore a tray which held a covered dish and a pint-sized milk carton.

"Who's fucking?" he asked.