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.
“yes” said i, “you did.”
“well, now, to go back to st. thomas,” he began——
“why on earth——?” said i.
he interrupted me. “now that is interesting,” he said. “you know about st. thomas, and you can tell me about the people who know about him, but it does show that he had gone out in the twentieth century, for you to talk like that! why, i got full marks in st. thomas. only thing i did[86] get full marks in,” he said gloomily, looking out of the window. “that’s what counts,” he added: “none of yer high-falutin’ dodgy fellows. when the colonel said, ‘who’s got the most stuff in him?’ (not because of the rocks nor because i’m baron hogg), they all said, ‘that’s him.’ and that was because i got first in st. thomas.”
to say that i simply could not make head or tail of this would be to say too little: and my muddlement got worse when he added, “that’s why the colonel made me alderman, and now i go to paris by right.”
just at that moment the taxi-man put in his head at the window and said, with an aggrieved look:
“why didn’t you tell me where i was going?”
i looked out, and saw that i was in a desolate place near the river lea, among marshes and chimneys and the poor. there was a rotten-looking shed close by, and a policeman, uncommonly suspicious. my friend got quite excited. he pointed to the policeman and said:
“oh, how like the pictures! is it true that they are the secret power in england? now do——”
the taxi-man got quite angry, and pointed out to me that his cab was not a caravan. he further informed me that it had been my business to tell him the way to the “angel.” his asset was that if he dropped me there i would be in a bad way; mine was that if i paid him off there he would be in a worse one. we bargained and quarrelled, and as[87] we did so the policeman majestically moved up, estimated the comparative wealth of the three people concerned, and falsely imagining my friend to be an actor in broad daylight, he took the taxi-man’s part, and ordered us off back to the “angel,” telling us we ought to be thankful to be let off so lightly. he further gave the taxi-man elaborate instructions for reaching the place.
as i had no desire to get to the “angel” really, i implored the taxi-man to take me back to westminster, which he was willing to do, and on the way the man from the future was most entertaining. he spotted the public-houses as we passed, and asked me, as a piece of solid, practical information, whether wine, beer, and spirits were sold in them. i said, “of course,” but he told me that there was a great controversy in his generation, some people maintaining that the number of them was, in fiction, drawn by enemies; others said that they were, as a fact, quite few and unimportant in london, and others again that they simply did not exist but were the creations of social satire. he asked me to point him out the houses of brill and ferguson, who, it seems, were in the eyes of the twenty-second century the principal authors of our time. when i answered that i had never heard of them he said, “that is interesting.” i was a little annoyed and asked him whether he had ever heard of kipling, miss fowler, or swinburne.
he said of course he had read kipling and swinburne,[88] and though he had not read miss fowler’s works he had been advised to. but he said that brill for wit and ferguson for economic analysis were surely the glories of our england. then he suddenly added, “well, i’m not sure about 1909. the first collected brill is always thought to be 1911. but ferguson! why he knew a lot of people as early as 1907! he did the essay on medi?val economics which is the appendix to our school text of st. thomas.”
at this moment we were going down whitehall. he jumped up excitedly, pointed at the duke of cambridge’s statue and said, “that’s charles i.” then he pointed to the left and said, “that’s the duke of buccleuigh’s house.” and then as he saw the victoria tower he shouted, “oh, that’s big ben, i know it. and oh, i say,” he went on, “just look at the abbey!” “now,” he said, with genuine bonhomie as the taxi drew up with a jerk, “are those statues symbolic?”
“no,” i said, “they are real people.”
at this he was immensely pleased, and said that he had always said so.
the taxi-man looked in again and asked with genuine pathos where we really wanted to go to.
but just as i was about to answer him two powerful men in billycock hats took my friend quietly but firmly out of the cab, linked their arms in his, and begged me to follow them. i paid the taxi and did so.
[89]the strange man did not resist. he smiled rather foolishly. they hailed a four-wheeler, and we all got in together. we drove about half a mile to the south of westminster bridge, stopped at a large georgian house, and there we all got out. i noticed that the two men treated the stranger with immense respect, but with considerable authority. he, poor fellow, waved his hand at me, and said with a faint smile as he went through the door, arm in arm with his captors:
“sorry you had to pay. came away without my salary ticket. very silly.” and he disappeared.
the other man remaining behind said to me very seriously, “i hope his lordship didn’t trouble you, sir?”
i said that on the contrary he had behaved like an english gentleman, all except the clothes.
“well,” said the keeper, “he’s not properly a lord as you may say; he’s an australian gent. but he’s a lord in a manner of speaking, because parliament did make him one. as for the clothes—ah! you may well ask! but we durstn’t say anything: the doctor and the nurse says it soothes him since his money trouble. but i say, make ’em act sensible and they will be sensible.”
he then watched to see whether i would give him money for no particular reason, and as i made no gestures to that effect i went away, and thus avoided what politicians call “studied insolence.”
