He put down his glass, and walked towards the staircase door.  Again I remarked his lameness and the soft padding sound of his footfall, and standing up in my place, I saw his feet as he went out.  He had nothing on them but a pair of tattered, blood-stained socks.  Then the door closed upon him.  I had half a mind to follow, till I remembered how he detested any fuss about himself.  For a minute, perhaps, my mind was wool-gathering.  Then, ’Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist,’ I heard the Editor say, thinking (after his wont) in headlines.  And this brought my attention back to the bright dinner-table.

‘What’s the game?’ said the Journalist.  ’Has he been doing the Amateur Cadger?  I don’t follow.’  I met the eye of the Psychologist, and read my own interpretation in his face.  I thought of the Time Traveller limping painfully upstairs.  I don’t think any one else had noticed his lameness.

The first to recover completely from this surprise was the Medical Man, who rang the bell—­the Time Traveller hated to have servants waiting at dinner—­for a hot plate.  At that the Editor turned to his knife and fork with a grunt, and the Silent Man followed suit.  The dinner was resumed.  Conversation was exclamatory for a little while, with gaps of wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent in his curiosity.  ’Does our friend eke out his modest income with a crossing? or has he his Nebuchadnezzar phases?’ he inquired.  ’I feel assured it’s this business of the Time Machine,’ I said, and took up the Psychologist’s account of our previous meeting.  The new guests were frankly incredulous.  The Editor raised objections.  ’What was this time travelling?  A man couldn’t cover himself with dust by rolling in a paradox, could he?’ And then, as the idea came home to him, he resorted to caricature.  Hadn’t they any clothes-brushes in the Future?  The Journalist too, would not believe at any price, and joined the Editor in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the whole thing.  They were both the new kind of journalist—­very joyous, irreverent young men.  ’Our Special Correspondent in the Day after To-morrow reports,’ the Journalist was saying—­or rather shouting—­when the Time Traveller came back.  He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes, and nothing save his haggard look remained of the change that had startled me.

‘I say,’ said the Editor hilariously, ’these chaps here say you have been travelling into the middle of next week!  Tell us all about little Rosebery, will you?  What will you take for the lot?’

The Time Traveller came to the place reserved for him without a word.  He smiled quietly, in his old way.  ‘Where’s my mutton?’ he said.  ‘What a treat it is to stick a fork into meat again!’

‘Story!’ cried the Editor.

‘Story be damned!’ said the Time Traveller.  ’I want something to eat.  I won’t say a word until I get some peptone into my arteries.  Thanks.  And the salt.’