Time After Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

the clock on his desk. In another half hour the sun would be rising. They had talked all night.
    â€œWhat isn’t possible?” said Stephenson tiredly. “Traveling into the past or future isn’t possible.”
    H.G. swung around, eyes bright and piercing despite the late hour. “What were you doing eight years ago, John?”
    â€œStudying medicine. What does that prove?”
    â€œWhat was your first lecture class?”
    â€œAnatomy.”
    â€œCan you picture the face, stature and mannerisms of your professor?”
    â€œCertainly.”
    â€œCan you close your eyes and see the drawings and charts of the human body?”
    â€œDefinitely.”
    â€œCan you recall the first cadaver your class dissected?”
    â€œWhat are you getting at, Wells? Of course I can! My memory’s as good as anyone’s!”
    â€œThen your mind has just traveled through time. Fait accompli.” H.G. smiled, then administered the coup de grace. “And if your mind can do that, why not the rest of you?”
    The guests murmured to each other.

    Stephenson was on his feet exclaiming, “It’s against reason, Wells!”
    â€œPerhaps. But so is defying gravity. You do know that more than one man has risen over five thousand feet above the earth’s surface in a balloon, don’t you?”
    Stephenson started to speak, then sagged and thought furiously. Ten years ago, who would have thought of an electric light bulb? Or a talking machine? One hundred years ago, who would have thought of a camera? Or a gramophone? Technology did appear to be developing faster and faster. Maybe Wells was right about a Utopian future with a contented population. His theories seemed sound.
    Smythe had the floor, and as he spoke he gestured triumphantly. “Doesn’t this all sound suspiciously familiar? Much like a collection of absurdities Wells published in the Journal five years ago?” He turned and addressed H.G. “What did you title that piece?”
    â€œâ€˜The Chronic Argonauts.’”
    â€œOh, yes.” Smythe continued. “Wasn’t it about a young man who traveled through time encountering great civilizations in the future? What a lot of simplistic rubbish that is! Give up this thinking about a time machine, Wells. It’s a waste of time, and it doesn’t suit you.”
    H.G. cleared his throat and smiled smugly. “I haven’t just thought about a time machine, gentlemen, I have constructed one.”

2
    The uproar of voices from downstairs awakened Mrs. Nelson. She listened for a moment and could hear Wells’s muffled tones and then another uproar. She looked at her clock on the bedside table: 5:15 A.M. She frowned. The man has no sense at all, she thought. No sense and no breeding, despite his educated ways. Him and his cronies will have half the neighborhood up before long. If Mr. Wells didn’t have the consideration to tell his guests when to leave, then she would tell them herself. She got out of bed and donned a robe over her blue nightdress.
    As she started downstairs, she shook her head. She just didn’t understand the man. He could be so nice and thoughtful, so kind and generous, then turn right around and spout his radical and blasphemous ideas until all hours of the morning. No doubt the former qualities could be attributed to the guiding hand of Mr. Wells’s mother, who kept the family together, Mrs. Nelson thought. The latter were undeniably part and parcel of his irresponsible father, who was always away playing in semiprofessional cricket matches. Not to mention the schooling that planted the spurious seeds of Darwinism, socialism and other irreligious notions in poor Mr. Wells’s impressionable mind. She sighed. Perhaps some day soon she could
induce the vicar to drop in for some tea; he might be able to talk some sense into the young man.
    When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard sharp knocking