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, said I, 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!
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