III

'I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time

Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself, incomplete in the

workshop. There it is now, a little travel-worn, truly; and one of

the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of

it's sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday, but on Friday,

when the putting together was nearly done, I found that one of the

nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this I had to get

remade; so that the thing was not complete until this morning. It

was at ten o'clock to-day that the first of all Time Machines began

its career. I gave it a last tap, tried all the screws again, put

one more drop of oil on the quartz rod, and sat myself in the

saddle. I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels

much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then. I took

the starting lever in one hand and the stopping one in the other,

pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. I seemed to

reel; I felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and, looking round,

I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For

a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I noted

the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute

or so past ten; now it was nearly half-past three!

'I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both

hands, and went off with a thud. The laboratory got hazy and went

The Time Machine