Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the second chapter of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

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Welcome to Byte At A Time Books, where we read you your favorite classics one Byte at a Time.

My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

If you enjoy our show, be sure here to follow us so you get all the new episodes.

If you want to see exclusive behind the scenes of our show, join our Patreon.

We would also love for you to drop us a rating on your favorite podcast platform and share our show with your friends.

You can catch us on all the social medias at Byte Books.

We are now part of the Byte At A Time Books Productions Network.

If you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite at the Time Books Behind the Story.

Wherever you listen to podcasts today, we'll be continuing the Time Machine by HG Wells three the Time Traveler Returns I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine.

The fact is, the Time Traveler was one of those men who are too clever to be believed.

You never felt that you saw all around him.

You always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush behind his lucid frankness.

Had Philby shown the model and explained to the matter in the Time Traveler's words, we should have shown him far less skepticism, for we should have perceived his motives.

A pork Butcher could understand Philby, but the Time Traveler 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 the Time Traveling 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 anacronism and 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 Linean.

He said he had seen a similar thing at two again and laid considerable stress on the blowing out of the candle, but how the trick was done, he could not explain.

The next Thursday I went again to Richmond.

I suppose I was one of the Time Traveler'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 around for the Time Traveler and it's 07:30 now, said the Medical Man.

I suppose we'd better have dinner.

Where's?

Said I, naming our host.

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.

It seems a pity to let the dinner spoil, said the editor of a wellknown daily paper, and thereupon the doctor rang the Bell.

The psychologist was the only person Besides the doctor and myself who had attended the previous dinner.

The other men were blank, the Editor forementioned 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 Traveler's absence, and I suggested time traveling in a half jocular spirits.

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.

Hello, I said at last, and the door opened wider and the Time Traveler 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 table full, turned towards the door.

He was in an amazing plight.

His coat was dusty and dirty and smeared with green down the leaves.

His hair disordered and, as it seemed to me, grayer, either with dust and dirt or because its color 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 foot sore tramps.

We stared at him in silence, expecting him to speak.

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 Traveler 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 color came into his cheeks.

His glance flickered over our faces with a certain dull approval, and then went round to 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.

He looked across at the editor, who was a rare visitor, and hoped he was alright.

The editor began a question.

Tell you presently, said the time traveler.

I'm funny be all right in a minute.

He put down his glass and walked towards the staircase door.

Again I remarked his lameness and the soft padding sound of his football, 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 behavior of an eminent scientist, I heard the editor say, thinking after his want in headlines, and this brought my attention back to the bright dinner table.

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 traveler limping painfully upstairs.

I don't think anyone else had noticed his lameness.

The first to recover completely from the surprise was the medical man who rang the Bell.

The time traveler 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 had his Nebuchadnezzar faces?

He enquired.

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 was this time traveling?

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 there any clothes brushes in the future?

The journalists, 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 journalists, very joyous, irreverent young men.

Our special correspondent in the Day after tomorrow reports, the journalist was saying, or rather shouting, when the time traveler came back.

He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes, and nothing save his Haggard look remained of the change that had startled me.

I say, said the editor, hilariously.

These chaps here say you have been traveling into the middle of next week.

Tell us all about little Roseberry, will you?

What will you take for the lot?

The Time Traveler 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.

Story, cried the editor.

Story be damned, said the Time Traveler.

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 traveling?

Yes, said the Time Traveler with his mouth full, nodding his head.

I'd give a shilling a line for a verbatim note, said the Editor.

The Time Traveler 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 Henry Potter.

The Time Traveler devoted his attention to his dinner and displayed the appetite of a Tramp.

The medical man smoked a cigarette and watched the Time Traveler 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 Traveler pushed his plate away and looked around us.

I suppose I must apologize, he said.

I was simply starving.

I've had the 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.

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 is a mere paradox, said the Editor.

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 04:00, 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 Traveler began his story.

As I have said 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 for 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 hear 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 traveler's face.

Thank you for joining Byte At A Time books today while we read a Byte of one of your favorite classics.

If you enjoy our show, be sure to follow us so you get all the new episodes.

If you want to see exclusive behind the scenes of our show, join our Patreon.

We would also love for you to drop us a rating on your favorite podcast platform and share our show with your friends.

You can catch us on all the social medias at Bite At A Time Books.

Also, be sure to check us on our website, www.bteimebooks.com.

We are now part of the Byte At A Time Books Productions Network.

If you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite At The Time books behind the story Tuesdays wherever you listen to podcasts again.