239 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
239 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
---
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title: 'The Time Machine'
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date: '2018-08-15'
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tags: ['writings', 'book', 'reflection']
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draft: false
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summary: 'The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was
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expounding a recondite matter to us. His pale grey eyes shone and
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twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated...'
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---
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# The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
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_Title_: The Time Machine
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_Author_: H. G. Wells
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_Subject_: Science Fiction
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_Language_: English
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_Source_: [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35)
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## Introduction
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The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was
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expounding a recondite matter to us. His pale grey eyes shone and
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twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire
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burnt brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the
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lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our
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glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather
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than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious
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after-dinner atmosphere, when thought runs gracefully free of the
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trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way—marking the
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points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his
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earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it) and his fecundity.
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“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two
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ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance,
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they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.”
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“Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?” said
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Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.
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“I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground
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for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of
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course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness _nil_, has no real
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existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane.
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These things are mere abstractions.”
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“That is all right,” said the Psychologist.
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“Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a
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real existence.”
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“There I object,” said Filby. “Of course a solid body may exist. All
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real things—”
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“So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an _instantaneous_ cube
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exist?”
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“Don’t follow you,” said Filby.
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“Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real
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existence?”
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Filby became pensive. “Clearly,” the Time Traveller proceeded, “any
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real body must have extension in _four_ directions: it must have
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Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration. But through a natural
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infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we
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incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three
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which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is,
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however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former
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three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our
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consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter
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from the beginning to the end of our lives.”
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“That,” said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his
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cigar over the lamp; “that . . . very clear indeed.”
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“Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,”
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continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness.
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“Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some
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people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It
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is only another way of looking at Time. _There is no difference between
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Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our
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consciousness moves along it_. But some foolish people have got hold of
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the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they have to say
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about this Fourth Dimension?”
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“_I_ have not,” said the Provincial Mayor.
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“It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is
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spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length,
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Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three
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planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical
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people have been asking why _three_ dimensions particularly—why not
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another direction at right angles to the other three?—and have even
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tried to construct a Four-Dimensional geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb
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was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month
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or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has only two
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dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-dimensional solid, and
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similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they could
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represent one of four—if they could master the perspective of the
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thing. See?”
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“I think so,” murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his brows,
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he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one who
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repeats mystic words. “Yes, I think I see it now,” he said after some
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time, brightening in a quite transitory manner.
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“Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry
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of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For
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instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at
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fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All
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these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional
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representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and
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unalterable thing.
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“Scientific people,” proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause
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required for the proper assimilation of this, “know very well that Time
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is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a
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weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the movement of
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the barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then
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this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here. Surely the
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mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space
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generally recognised? But certainly it traced such a line, and that
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line, therefore, we must conclude, was along the Time-Dimension.”
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“But,” said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the fire, “if
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Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and why has
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it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move
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in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of Space?”
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The Time Traveller smiled. “Are you so sure we can move freely in
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Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough,
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and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions.
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But how about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.”
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“Not exactly,” said the Medical Man. “There are balloons.”
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“But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the
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inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical movement.”
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“Still they could move a little up and down,” said the Medical Man.
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“Easier, far easier down than up.”
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“And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the
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present moment.”
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“My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where the
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whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present
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moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no
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dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform
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velocity from the cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel _down_
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if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth’s surface.”
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“But the great difficulty is this,” interrupted the Psychologist. ’You
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_can_ move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move about
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in Time.”
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“That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that
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we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an
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incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I
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become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course
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we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than
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a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a
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civilised man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go
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up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that
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ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the
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Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?”
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“Oh, _this_,” began Filby, “is all—”
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“Why not?” said the Time Traveller.
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“It’s against reason,” said Filby.
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“What reason?” said the Time Traveller.
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“You can show black is white by argument,” said Filby, “but you will
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never convince me.”
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“Possibly not,” said the Time Traveller. “But now you begin to see the
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object of my investigations into the geometry of Four Dimensions. Long
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ago I had a vague inkling of a machine—”
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“To travel through Time!” exclaimed the Very Young Man.
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“That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time, as
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the driver determines.”
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Filby contented himself with laughter.
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“But I have experimental verification,” said the Time Traveller.
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“It would be remarkably convenient for the historian,” the Psychologist
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suggested. “One might travel back and verify the accepted account of
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the Battle of Hastings, for instance!”
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“Don’t you think you would attract attention?” said the Medical Man.
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“Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.”
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“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato,” the
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Very Young Man thought.
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“In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The
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German scholars have improved Greek so much.”
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“Then there is the future,” said the Very Young Man. “Just think! One
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might invest all one’s money, leave it to accumulate at interest, and
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hurry on ahead!”
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“To discover a society,” said I, “erected on a strictly communistic
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basis.”
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“Of all the wild extravagant theories!” began the Psychologist.
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“Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I never talked of it until—”
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“Experimental verification!” cried I. “You are going to verify _that_?”
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“The experiment!” cried Filby, who was getting brain-weary.
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“Let’s see your experiment anyhow,” said the Psychologist, “though it’s
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all humbug, you know.”
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The Time Traveller smiled round at us. Then, still smiling faintly, and
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with his hands deep in his trousers pockets, he walked slowly out of
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the room, and we heard his slippers shuffling down the long passage to
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his laboratory.
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The Psychologist looked at us. “I wonder what he’s got?”
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“Some sleight-of-hand trick or other,” said the Medical Man, and Filby
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tried to tell us about a conjuror he had seen at Burslem, but before he
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had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back, and Filby’s
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anecdote collapsed.
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