Printing date as a variable?

Hello!

I am looking to print the date and multiply it by two. I have following code:

<?
$second_number = 2;
$third_number = the_time('j');

$sum_total = $third_number * $second_number;
print ($sum_total);
?>

Which seems like it would make sense and work correctly. But instead, it just adds a 0 in front of the data.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much