seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly
glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone—vanished! Save
for the lamp the table was bare.
Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he
was damned.
The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and
suddenly looked under the table. At that the Time
Traveller laughed cheerfully. ‘Well?’ he said, with a
reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then, getting up, he
went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back
to us began to fill his pipe.
We stared at each other. ‘Look here,’ said the Medical
Man, ‘are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously
believe that that machine has travelled into time?’
‘Certainly,’ said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a
spill at the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look
at the Psychologist’s face. (The Psychologist, to show that
he was not unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried
to light it uncut.) ‘What is more, I have a big machine
nearly finished in there’—he indicated the laboratory—
‘and when that is put together I mean to have a journey
on my own account.’ The Time Machine
14 of 148
‘You mean to say that that machine has travelled into
the future?’ said Filby.
‘Into the future or the past—I don’t, for certain, know
which.’
After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. ‘It
must have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,’ he
said.
‘Why?’ said the Time Traveller.
‘Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and
if it travelled into the future it would still be here all this
time, since it must have travelled through this time.’
‘But,’ I said, ‘If it travelled into the past it would have
been visible when we came first into this room; and last
Thursday when we were here; and the Thursday before
that; and so forth!’
‘Serious objections,’ remarked the Provincial Mayor,
with an air of impartiality, turning towards the Time
Traveller.
‘Not a bit,’ said the Time Traveller, and, to the
Psychologist: ‘You think. You can explain that. It’s
presentation below the threshold, you know, diluted
presentation.’
‘Of course,’ said the Psychologist, and reassured us.
‘That’s a simple point of psychology. I should have The Time Machine
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thought of it. It’s plain enough, and helps the paradox
delightfully. We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this
machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel
spinning, or a bullet flying through the air. If it is
travelling through time fifty times or a hundred times
faster than we are, if it gets through a minute while we get
through a second, the impression it creates will of course
be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would
make if it were not travelling in time. That’s plain
enough.’ He passed his hand through the space in which
the machine had been. ‘You see?’ he said, laughing.
We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so.
Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it
all.
‘It sounds plausible enough to-night,’ said the Medical
Man; ‘but wait until to-morrow. Wait for the common
sense of the morning.’
‘Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?’ asked
the Time Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his
hand, he led the way down the long, draughty corridor to
his laboratory. I remember vividly the flickering light, his
queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows,
how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and
how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of The Time Machine
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the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from
before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts
had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The
thing was generally complete, but the twisted crystalline
bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside some sheets of
drawings, and I took one up for a better look at it. Quartz
it seemed to be.
‘Look here,’ said the Medical Man, ‘are you perfectly
serious? Or is this a trick—like that ghost you showed us
last Christmas?’
‘Upon that machine,’ said the Time Traveller, holding
the lamp aloft, ‘I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I
was never more serious in my life.’
None of us quite knew how to take it.
I caught Filby’s eye over the shoulder of the Medical
Man, and he winked at me solemnly. The Time Machine
17 of 148
II
I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the
Time Machine. The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of
those men who are too clever to be believed: you never
felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected
some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his
lucid frankness. Had Filby shown the model and explained
the matter in the Time Traveller’s words, we should have
shown HIM far less scepticism. For we should have
perceived his motives; a pork butcher could understand
Filby. But the Time Traveller had more than a touch of
whim among his elements, and we distrusted him. Things
that would have made the frame of a less clever man
seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too
easily. The serious people who took him seriously never
felt quite sure of his deportment; they were somehow
aware that trusting their reputations for judgment with
him was like furnishing a nursery with egg-shell china. So
I don’t think any of us said very much about time
travelling in the interval between that Thursday and the
next, though its odd potentialities ran, no doubt, in most
of our minds: its plausibility, that is, its practical The Time Machine
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incredibleness, the curious possibilities of anachronism and
of utter confusion it suggested. For my own part, I was
particularly preoccupied with the trick of the model. That
I remember discussing with the Medical Man, whom I
met on Friday at the Linnaean. He said he had seen a
similar thing at Tubingen, and laid considerable stress on
the blowing out of the candle. But how the trick was
done he could not explain.
The next Thursday I went again to Richmond—I
suppose I was one of the Time Traveller’s most constant
guests—and, arriving late, found four or five men already
assembled in his drawing-room. The Medical Man was
standing before the fire with a sheet of paper in one hand
and his watch in the other. I looked round for the Time
Traveller, and—‘It’s half-past seven now,’ said the Medical
Man. ‘I suppose we’d better have dinner?’
‘Where’s——?’ said I, naming our host.
‘You’ve just come? It’s rather odd. He’s unavoidably
detained. He asks me in this note to lead off with dinner at
seven if he’s not back. Says he’ll explain when he comes.’
‘It seems a pity to let the dinner spoil,’ said the Editor
of a well-known daily paper; and thereupon the Doctor
rang the bell. The Time Machine
19 of 148
The Psychologist was the only person besides the
Doctor and myself who had attended the previous dinner.
The other men were Blank, the Editor aforementioned, a
certain journalist, and another—a quiet, shy man with a
beard—whom I didn’t know, and who, as far as my
observation went, never opened his mouth all the
evening. There was some speculation at the dinner-table
about the Time Traveller’s absence, and I suggested time
travelling, in a half-jocular spirit. The Editor wanted that
explained to him, and the Psychologist volunteered a
wooden account of the ‘ingenious paradox and trick’ we
had witnessed that day week. He was in the midst of his
exposition when the door from the corridor opened
slowly and without noise. I was facing the door, and saw it
first. ‘Hallo!’ I said. ‘At last!’ And the door opened wider,
and the Time Traveller stood before us. I gave a cry of
surprise. ‘Good heavens! man, what’s the matter?’ cried
the Medical Man, who saw him next. And the whole
tableful turned towards the door.
He was in an amazing plight. His coat was dusty and
dirty, and smeared with green down the sleeves; his hair
disordered, and as it seemed to me greyer—either with
dust and dirt or because its colour had actually faded. His
face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it—a The Time Machine
20 of 148
cut half healed; his expression was haggard and drawn, as
by intense suffering. For a moment he hesitated in the
doorway, as if he had been dazzled by the light. Then he
came into the room. He walked with just such a limp as I
have seen in footsore tramps. We stared at him in silence,
expecting him to speak.
He said not a word, but came painfully to the table,
and made a motion towards the wine. The Editor filled a
glass of champagne, and pushed it towards him. He
drained it, and it seemed to do him good: for he looked
round the table, and the ghost of his old smile flickered
across his face. ‘What on earth have you been up to, man?’
said the Doctor. The Time Traveller did not seem to hear.
‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ he said, with a certain faltering
articulation. ‘I’m all right.’ He stopped, held out his glass
for more, and took it off at a draught. ‘That’s good,’ he
said. His eyes grew brighter, and a faint colour came into
his cheeks. His glance flickered over our faces with a
certain dull approval, and then went round the warm and
comfortable room. Then he spoke again, still as it were
feeling his way among his words. ‘I’m going to wash and
dress, and then I’ll come down and explain things… Save
me some of that mutton. I’m starving for a bit of meat.’ The Time Machine
21 of 148
He looked across at the Editor, who was a rare visitor,
and hoped he was all right. The Editor began a question.
‘Tell you presently,’ said the Time Traveller. ‘I’m—funny!
Be all right in a minute.’
He put down his glass, and walked towards the staircase
door. Again I remarked his lameness and the soft padding
sound of his footfall, and standing up in my place, I saw
his feet as he went out. He had nothing on them but a
pair of tattered blood-stained socks. Then the door closed
upon him. I had half a mind to follow, till I remembered
how he detested any fuss about himself. For a minute,
perhaps, my mind was wool-gathering. Then,
‘Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist,’ I heard
the Editor say, thinking (after his wont) in headlines. And
this brought my attention back to the bright dinner-table.
‘What’s the game?’ said the Journalist. ‘Has he been
doing the Amateur Cadger? I don’t follow.’ I met the eye
of the Psychologist, and read my own interpretation in his
face. I thought of the Time Traveller limping painfully
upstairs. I don’t think any one else had noticed his
lameness.
The first to recover completely from this surprise was
the Medical Man, who rang the bell—the Time Traveller
hated to have servants waiting at dinner—for a hot plate. The Time Machine
22 of 148
At that the Editor turned to his knife and fork with a
grunt, and the Silent Man followed suit. The dinner was
resumed. Conversation was exclamatory for a little while,
with gaps of wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent
in his curiosity. ‘Does our friend eke out his modest
income with a crossing? or has he his Nebuchadnezzar
phases?’ he inquired. ‘I feel assured it’s this business of the
Time Machine,’ I said, and took up the Psychologist’s
account of our previous meeting. The new guests were
frankly incredulous. The Editor raised objections. ‘What
WAS this time travelling? A man couldn’t cover himself
with dust by rolling in a paradox, could he?’ And then, as
the idea came home to him, he resorted to caricature.
Hadn’t they any clothes-brushes in the Future? The
Journalist too, would not believe at any price, and joined
the Editor in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the
whole thing. They were both the new kind of journalist—
very joyous, irreverent young men. ‘Our Special
Correspondent in the Day after To-morrow reports,’ the
Journalist was saying—or rather shouting—when the
Time Traveller came back. He was dressed in ordinary
evening clothes, and nothing save his haggard look
remained of the change that had startled me. The Time Machine
23 of 148
‘I say,’ said the Editor hilariously, ‘these chaps here say
you have been travelling into the middle of next week!
Tell us all about little Rosebery, will you? What will you
take for the lot?’
The Time Traveller came to the place reserved for him
without a word. He smiled quietly, in his old way.
‘Where’s my mutton?’ he said. ‘What a treat it is to stick a
fork into meat again!’
‘Story!’ cried the Editor.
‘Story be damned!’ said the Time Traveller. ‘I want
something to eat. I won’t say a word until I get some
peptone into my arteries. Thanks. And the salt.’
‘One word,’ said I. ‘Have you been time travelling?’
‘Yes,’ said the Time Traveller, with his mouth full,
nodding his head.
‘I’d give a shilling a line for a verbatim note,’ said the
Editor. The Time Traveller pushed his glass towards the
Silent Man and rang it with his fingernail; at which the
Silent Man, who had been staring at his face, started
convulsively, and poured him wine. The rest of the dinner
was uncomfortable. For my own part, sudden questions
kept on rising to my lips, and I dare say it was the same
with the others. The Journalist tried to relieve the tension
by telling anecdotes of Hettie Potter. The Time Traveller The Time Machine
24 of 148
devoted his attention to his dinner, and displayed the
appetite of a tramp. The Medical Man smoked a cigarette,
and watched the Time Traveller through his eyelashes.
The Silent Man seemed even more clumsy than usual, and
drank champagne with regularity and determination out of
sheer nervousness. At last the Time Traveller pushed his
plate away, and looked round us. ‘I suppose I must
