"Thomas, I'm telling you Connecticut is not signing this thing if you don't change the third paragraph, what's the big deal?"

"Let them not sign. Everyone else can sign."

"Twelve? You want 12 colonies to sign? It's bad luck."

"Rutledge wants to sign tonight. He says he can't make it tomorrow."

"What's his problem?"

"His wife is with child."

"How does she know it's coming tomorrow? It could just as easily be the fifth."

"His wife knows. Apparently it's her 19th. Besides, the midwife came all the way up from South Carolina."

"Look, nobody's signing anything till Thomas gets this thing finished. If everyone doesn't stop bothering him, he's threatening to put the whole thing off till the ninth."

"The Colonial wants a final head count for the Signing Party tomorrow."

"It's all up to Rhode Island. They invited everyone who has ever served as a bard to come."

"They can invite whomever they want. It doesn't mean they get to sign."

"Just tell the Colonial there's 55. We'll deal with it tomorrow."

"Damn." "What is it, Thomas?" "My copier broke."

"What's a copier?"

"I rigged this thingamajig up which attaches my quill to another quill on the other side of my writing table. I wanted to make an extra copy. That's what's taking so long."

"How many originals do we need?"

"Can't you get one of your servants to do that?"

"Sure, if they knew how to write."

"If they knew how to write they wouldn't be servants, would they?"

"If they were in Rhode Island they'd probably make them all bards."

"All right, I got the Colonial to move the signing back to 1 p.m."

"So, we'll eat first, then sign? Some of the guys can't wait that long."

"You heard about Hampton?" "No, what?"

"He died this morning."

"No, the day before the Signing Party?"

"What else can go wrong? I can't keep up with the head count."

"What's Franklin up to? Is he nodding off?"

"He's downstairs with Dolly."

"Who's downstairs with Dolly?"

"James, just concentrate on lining up the fireworks."

"Hamilton is making me get them from Georgia because they tax the heck out of it in Pennsylvania. Thomas is putting something in there about that, right?"

"I still say we skip the fireworks; someone could get hurt."

"It's ready."

"Finally! Okay, everybody, Thomas says it's ready."

"That doesn't look ready. There's not enough room for signatures."

"Yeah, wait'll Hancock gets his hands on that."

"Is that how you spell 'endeavoured'? What about 'compleat'? I've never seen it written down before."

"It's 11 o'clock. Jefferson's been working on this thing for days. No more revisions."

"Hold on, let's just do this. We'll start out, 'When in the course of human events' blah, blah, blah, I like that. Then we cut right to the last paragraph where we really give it to the Brits. No one's gonna read all these grudges we have here."

"What about the 'We hold these truths to be self-evident' part? I like that."

"Okay, we can keep that if it makes Delaware happy. But what do we mean by, 'To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world?' King George is going to be all over that."

"Wait a minute. Didn't we all agree that we are not calling him King anymore?"

"Let him read it himself."

"Has anyone considered that he's liable to declare war over this piece of paper?"

"That's Washington's problem."

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Billy Martin is a resident of Thousand Oaks.