The Space Machine

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In the April of 1893 I was staying in the course of my business at the Devonshire Arms in Skipton, Yorkshire. I was then twenty-three years of age, and enjoying a modest and not unsuccessful career as commercial representative of the firm of Josiah Westerman Sons, Purveyors of Leather Fancy Goods. Not much will be said in this narrative of my employment, for even at that time it was not my major preoccupation, but it was instrumental, in its inglorious fashion, in precipitating the chain of events which are the major purpose of my story.

The Devonshire was a low, grey-brick commercial hotel, threaded with draughty and ill-lit corridors, drab with ageing paint and dark-stained panelling. The only congenial place in the hotel was the commercials’ lounge, for although it was small and burdened with furniture—the over-stuffed easy chairs were placed so close together it was scarcely possible to walk between them—the room was warm in winter and had the advantage of gas-mantle lighting, whereas the only sources of illumination in the bedrooms were dim and smoky oil-lamps.

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