When I arrived at his house the next Thursday, four or five men were already here. The doctor was standing in front of the fire with his watch in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.
"It's half past seven now," he said. "Shall we start dinner?"
"Where is the time traveler?" I asked. "Shouldn't we wait for him? We are guests in his house."
"I have a note from him," the doctor said, holding up the piece of paper. "It says he will be late and that we should start dinner first."
"In that case," the editor of a newspaper said, "let's go into the dining room."
He rang the bell to tell the housekeeper that we were ready to eat.
Not all the men present knew about the model of the time machine. Only the doctor and the psychologist knew. During dinner, we described the model to the other guests. I suggested, jokingly, that perhaps our host was late because he was traveling in time. The laughter suddenly changed to shock, however, when the door opened, and the time traveler stood there.
His clothes were dirty and torn. His face was white, and his chin had a cut on it.
