
Peter Hedgerly, a modest physicist, is jolted from a quiet morning routine when a stranger bursts into his home, insisting he is the grandson he has never met. The visitor, oddly familiar in appearance yet impossibly older, claims to have mastered time travel and is here to nudge Peter onto a path his descendants will eventually follow. Their clash of temperaments—Peter’s bewildered irritation and the visitor’s calm certainty—sets up a lively, slightly absurd confrontation.
As the mystery deepens, hints of a hidden family legacy and a future shaped by scientific tinkering emerge, promising both comedic mishaps and thoughtful speculation about destiny. Listeners are drawn into a world where personal relationships intersect with the far‑reaching possibilities of temporal physics, all while the characters grapple with everyday misunderstandings. The story balances witty dialogue with the tantalizing question of how much of our lives are pre‑written versus self‑made.
Language
en
Duration
~48 minutes (46K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated,1947.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2022-06-14
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1981
A mid-century science fiction writer with a knack for engineering-minded ideas, he became known for stories that mixed radio, electronics, and speculative science. His work appeared widely in the pulp magazine era and helped shape the feel of classic American SF.
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