AS I was going across Waterloo Bridge the other day, and when I had got to the other side of it, there appeared quite suddenly, I cannot say whence, a most extraordinary man. He was dressed in black silk, he had a sort of coat, or rather shirt, of black silk, with ample sleeves which were tied at either wrist tightly with brilliant golden threads. This shirt, or coat, came down to his knees, and appeared to be seamless. His trousers, which were very full and baggy, were caught at his ankles by similar golden threads. His feet were bare save for a pair of sandals. He had nothing upon his head, which was close cropped. His face was clean shaven. The only thing approaching an ornament, besides the golden threads of which I have spoken, was an enormous many-coloured and complicated coat-of-arms embroidered upon his breast, and showing up magnificently against the black.
He had appeared so suddenly that I almost ran into him, and he said to me breathlessly, and with a very strong nasal twang, “Can you talk English?”
I said that I could do so with fluency, and he appeared greatly relieved. Then he added, with[82] that violent nasal twang again, “You take me out of this!”
There was a shut taxi-cab passing and we got into it, and when he had got out of the crush, where several people had already stopped to stare at him, he lay back, panting a little, as though he had been running. The taxi-man looked in suddenly through the window, and asked, in the tone of voice of a man much insulted, where he was to drive to, adding that he didn’t want to go far.
I suggested the “Angel” at Islington, which I had never seen. The machine began to buzz, and we shot northward.
The stranger pulled himself together, and said in that irritating accent of his which I have already mentioned twice, “Now say, you, what year’s this anyway?”
I said it was 1909 (for it happened this year), to which he answered thoughtfully, “Well, I have missed it!”
“Missed what?” said I.
“Why, 1903,” said he.
And thereupon he told me a very extraordinary but very interesting tale.
It seems (according to him) that his name was Baron Hogg; that his place of living is (or rather will be) on Harting Hill, above Petersfield, where he has (or rather will have) a large house. But the really interesting thing in all that he told me was this: that he was born in the year 2183,[83] “which,” he added lucidly enough, “would be your 2187.”
“Why?” said I, bewildered, when he told me this.
“Good Lord!” he answered, quite frankly astonished, “you must know, even in 1909, that the calendar is four years out?”
I answered that a little handful of learned men knew this, but that we had not changed our reckoning for various practical reasons. To which he replied, leaning forward with a learned, interested look:
“Well, I came to learn things, and I lay I’m learning.”
He next went on to tell me that he had laid a bet with another man that he would “hit” 1903, on the 15th of June, and that the other man had laid a bet that he would get nearer. They were to meet at the Savoy Hotel at noon on the 30th, and to compare notes; and whichever had won was to pay the other a set of Records, for it seems they were both Antiquarians.
All this was Greek to me (as I daresay it is to you) until he pulled out of his pocket a thing like a watch, and noted that the dial was set at 1909. Whereupon he began tapping it and cursing in the name of a number of Saints familiar to us all.
It seems that to go backwards in time, according to him, was an art easily achieved towards the middle of the Twenty-second Century, and it was[84] worked by the simplest of instruments. I asked him if he had read “The Time Machine.” He said impatiently, “You have,” and went on to explain the little dial.
“They cost a deal of money, but then,” he added, with beautiful simplicity, “I have told you that I am Baron Hogg.”
Rich people played at it apparently as ours do at ballooning, and with the same uncertainty.
I asked him whether he could get forward into the future. He simply said: “What do you mean?”
“Why,” said I, “according to St. Thomas, time is a dimension, just like space.”
When I said the words “St. Thomas” he made a curious sign, like a man saluting. “Yes,” he said, gravely and reverently, “but you know well the future is forbidden to men.” He then made a digression to ask if St. Thomas was read in 1909. I told him to what extent, and by whom. He got intensely interested. He looked right up into my face, and began making gestures with his hands.
“Now that really is interesting,” he said.
I asked him “Why?”
“Well, you see,” he said in an off-hand way, “there’s the usual historic quarrel. On the face of it one would say he wasn’t read at all, looking up the old Records, and so on. Then some Specialist gets hold of all the mentions of him in the early Twentieth Century, and writes a book to show that even the politicians had heard of him. Then there is a[85] discussion, and nothing comes of it. That’s where the fun of Travelling Back comes in. You find out.”
I asked him if he had ever gone to the other centuries. He said, “No, but Pop did.” I learned later that “Pop” was his father.
“You see,” he added respectfully, “Pop’s only just dead, and, of course, I couldn’t afford it on my allowance. Pop,” he went on, rather proudly, “got himself back into the Thirteenth Century during a walk in Kent with a friend, and found himself in the middle of a horrible great river. He was saved just before the time was up.”
“How do you mean ‘the time was up’?” said I.
“Why,” he answered me, “you don’t suppose Pop could afford more than one hour, do you? Why, the Pope couldn’t afford more than six hours, even after they voted him a subsidy from Africa, and Pop was rich enough, Lord knows! Richer’n I am, coz of the gurls.... I told you I was Baron Hogg,” he went on, without affectation.
&ld............