"I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine and showed you the actual thing itself incomplete in the workshop. There it is now a little travel-worn truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked and a brass rail bent; but the rest of it's sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday; but on Friday when the putting together was nearly done I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short and this I had to get remade; so that the thing was not complete until this morning. It was at ten o'clock today that the first of all Time Machines began its career. I gave it a last tap tried all the screws again put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod and sat myself in the saddle. I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then. I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping one in the other pressed the first and almost immediately the second. 

I seemed to reel; I felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and looking round I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A moment before as it seemed it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearly half-past three!."