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206
THE TIME MACHINE.
credible to you, but to me the one incredible thing is that I am here to-night in this old familiar room, looking into your wholesome faces, and telling you all these strange adventures."
He looked at the Medical Man.
"No; I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie, or a prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies of our race, until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest. And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?"
He took up his pipe and began in his old accustomed manner to tap upon the bars of the grate.
