<h2><SPAN name="chap03"></SPAN>III.<br/> The Time Traveller Returns</h2>
<p>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 <i>him</i> 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
fame 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
eggshell 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 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 Linnæan. He
said he had seen a similar thing at Tübingen, and laid considerable stress
on the blowing-out of the candle. But how the trick was done he could not
explain.</p>
<p>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?”</p>
<p>“Where’s——?” said I, naming our host.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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
anyone else had noticed his lameness.</p>
<p>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. 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 <i>was</i>
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 Tomorrow
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.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>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!”</p>
<p>“Story!” cried the Editor.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“One word,” said I. “Have you been time
travelling?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said the Time Traveller, with his mouth full, nodding
his head.</p>
<p>“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 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 apologise,” he said.
“I was simply starving. I’ve had a most amazing time.” He
reached out his hand for a cigar, and cut the end. “But come into the
smoking-room. It’s too long a story to tell over greasy
plates.” And ringing the bell in passing, he led the way into the
adjoining room.</p>
<p>“You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the
machine?” he said to me, leaning back in his easy-chair and naming
the three new guests.</p>
<p>“But the thing’s a mere paradox,” said the Editor.</p>
<p>“I can’t argue tonight. I don’t mind telling you the
story, but I can’t argue. I will,” he went on, “tell you
the story of what has happened to me, if you like, but you must refrain
from interruptions. I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like
lying. So be it! It’s true—every word of it, all the same. I
was in my laboratory at four o’clock, and since then … I’ve
lived eight days … such days as no human being ever lived before! I’m
nearly worn out, but I shan’t sleep till I’ve told this thing
over to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no interruptions! Is it
agreed?”</p>
<p>“Agreed,” said the Editor, and the rest of us echoed
“Agreed.” And with that the Time Traveller began his story as I
have set it forth. He sat back in his chair at first, and spoke like a
weary man. Afterwards he got more animated. In writing it down I feel with
only too much keenness the inadequacy of pen and ink—and, above all,
my own inadequacy—to express its quality. You read, I will suppose,
attentively enough; but you cannot see the speaker’s white, sincere
face in the bright circle of the little lamp, nor hear the intonation of
his voice. You cannot know how his expression followed the turns of his
story! Most of us hearers were in shadow, for the candles in the
smoking-room had not been lighted, and only the face of the Journalist and
the legs of the Silent Man from the knees downward were illuminated. At
first we glanced now and again at each other. After a time we ceased to do
that, and looked only at the Time Traveller’s face.</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />