The Time Machine | Page 4

he
said suddenly. `Lend me your hand.' And turning to the Psychologist, he took that
individual's hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. So that it was the
Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage.
We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a
breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown
out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was 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.'
`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 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 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