‘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 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 apologize,’ 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. smoking 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.

‘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.

‘But the thing’s a mere paradox,’ said the Editor.

‘I can’t argue to-night. 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 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?’

‘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 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.

On that first first day, as soon as the collops were ready, Cluny gave them with his own hand a squeeze of a lemon (for he was well supplied with luxuries) and bade us draw in to our meal.

“They,” said he, meaning the collops, “are such as I gave his Royal Highness in this very house; bating the lemon juice, for at that time we were glad to get the meat and never fashed for kitchen.[28] Indeed, there were mair dragoons than lemons in my country in the year forty–six.”

[28]Condiment.

I do not know if the collops were truly very good, but my heart rose against the sight of them, and I could eat but little. All the while while Cluny entertained us with stories of Prince Charlie’s stay in the Cage, giving us the very words of the speakers, and rising from his place to show us where they stood. By these, I gathered the Prince was a gracious, spirited boy, like the son of a race of polite kings, but not so wise as Solomon. I gathered, too, that while he was in the Cage, he was often drunk; so the fault that has since, by all accounts, made such a wreck of him, had even then begun to show itself.

We were no sooner done eating than Cluny brought out an old, thumbed, greasy pack of cards, such as you may find in a mean inn; and his eyes brightened in his face as he proposed that we should fall to playing.

Now this was one of the things I had been brought up to eschew like disgrace; it being held by my father neither the part of a Christian nor yet of a gentleman to set his own livelihood and fish for that of others, on the cast of painted pasteboard. To be sure, I might have pleaded my fatigue, which was excuse enough; but I thought it behoved that I should bear a testimony. I must have got very red in the face, but I spoke steadily, and told them I had no call to be a judge of others, but for my own part, it was a matter in which I had no clearness.

Cluny stopped mingling the cards. “What in deil’s name is this?” says he. “What kind of Whiggish, canting talk is this, for the house of Cluny Macpherson?”

“I will put my hand in the fire for Mr. Balfour,” says Alan. “He is an honest and a mettle gentleman, and I would have ye bear in mind who says it. I bear a king’s name,” says he, cocking his hat; “and I and any that I call friend are company for the best. But the gentleman is tired, and should sleep; if he has no mind to the cartes, it will never hinder you and me. And I’m fit and willing, sir, to play ye any game that ye can name.”

“Sir,” says Cluny, “in this poor house of mine I would have you to ken that any gentleman may follow his pleasure. If your friend would like to stand on his head, he is welcome. And if either he, or you, or any other man, is not preceesely satisfied, I will be proud to step outside with him.”

I had no will that these two friends should cut their throats for my sake.

“Sir,” said I, “I am very wearied, as Alan says; and what’s more, as you are a man that likely has sons of your own, I may tell you it was a promise to my father.”