question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of

our five-year-old children--asked me, in fact, if I had come from

the sun in a thunderstorm! It let loose the judgment I had suspended

upon their clothes, their frail light limbs, and fragile features.

A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind. For a moment I felt

that I had built the Time Machine in vain.

I nodded, pointed to the sun, and gave them such a vivid rendering

of a thunderclap as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so

and bowed. Then came one laughing towards me, carrying a chain of

beautiful flowers altogether new to me, and put it about my neck.

The idea was received with melodious applause; and presently they

were all running to and fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging

them upon me until I was almost smothered with blossom. You who

have never seen the like can scarcely imagine what delicate and

wonderful flowers countless years of culture had created. Then

someone suggested that their plaything should be exhibited in the

nearest building, and so I was led past the sphinx of white marble,

which had seemed to watch me all the while with a smile at my

astonishment, towards a vast grey edifice of fretted stone. As I

went with them the memory of my confident anticipations of a

profoundly grave and intellectual posterity came, with irresistible

merriment, to my mind.

'The building had a huge entry, and was altogether of colossal

dimensions. I was naturally most occupied with the growing crowd of

The Time Machine