Now it so happened that in the year 1907,
Christopher Krauss, he being at that time
Assistant Rand Professor in Biological Chemistry
at the University of the Lakes which is in the
state of Pennsylvania, happened upon a very singular
book written by an Englishman.

The professor came out of his den in some
excitement, and went in search of his wife.

My dear, he said, when he had found her, I
have come upon a very curious book.

The professor's wife, being in a temper, only
shrugged her shoulders.

But, said Christopher Krauss, it is a *very*
curious book.

His wife then asked him what it might be about.
It is a book, he answered - as far as I can see - on no
less a subject than the fourth dimension.

Have you nothing better to do, said his wife, than
to be eternally plaguing me?

The professor's face fell, and he went back to
his den with the book, and not being in a mood to
work, sat down to read it. But before he had started

2.

his reading, ne bethought himself of something, and
going back the way he had come, stopped to knock at
his wife's door. About that book, he called in
through the door (for it was locked, and would not
open) - I meant to tell you - But here the good
lady began all at once to make a fearful din with
a shoe, beating it upon a wooden table, as though
she had no wish to hear more about the book, or
about anything at all; I meant to tell you, the
professor cried, That it is a book by Mr. Wells.

The din continued, and as there promised to be
no let up, and as, besides, it was evident that no
amount of bawling by the professor could possibly
be heard above it, he went back again to his room,
and set himself to read as comfortably as he could.

-8- 2.

3.

About a week later, walking across the college yard with the Professor of Applied Science, Christopher Krauss stopped suddenly still, and said in a breathless voice, Have you ever considered travelling in the fourth dimension?

The Professor of Applied Science looked down at his friend and shook his head soberly. See, he said, That is what comes of things.

Still, said Christopher Krauss, It is very interesting. And he spoke no more about the matter for some time, until one evening, he said unexpectedly, I should like to know more about molecular vibration.

But you know enough, dried his companion, the Professor of Applied Science.

Not enough, Christopher Krauss answered him solemnly, Not enough, my dear friend. For instance, I do not know, I cannot discover, the rate of vibration of the molecules of the living cells.

The two men passed under the great elms at the college gate and came into the street. Dusk was falling; lamplight glinted down the quiet streets of the town; the air was chill and drenched with the night dew. Christopher Krauss laid his hand on the arm of his friend.

4.

Let us stop for tea at the Gingham Cat, he
said. There are things in my head I want to tell
you of.

At the Gingham Cat they sat in an alcove, alone,
remote; the night grew outside, the lamps gathered
gold into their yellow, the windows of houses
kindled against the dark. Between them brooded the
warm tranquility of tea.

The fourth dimension, said Christopher Krauss.

Poo, said the Professor of Applied Science.

Not poo, the chemist answered him earnestly.

Even yourself cannot conceive of an object having no
time - an object entirely instantaneous. No, no - an
object exists in time. It has length, width, thickness
- and time. That is the fourth dimension.

Poo, said the man of science again.

But I tell you, it is not poo, Christopher Krauss
insisted. You and I can travel in all the dimensions
of space - up - along - out - but we cannot travel in
the fourth dimension. How is that? Why should we
not be able to travel in time? I say we should be.
We travel through the first, through the second
dimension, into the third. Why do we not travel
also through the third - through solids - into the
fourth? What does travel so, into the fourth
dimension, through the third - through solids into
time?

5.

To me, he went on slowly. It is a question
of vibration. All things vibrate; the fastest
vibration that we know is light. Only light moves
in the fourth dimension: that is, through and out
of the third dimension, as when a ray travels through
a solid, as through a window, or the violet ray
through an opaque solid. A single flash of light
disappears; it is not lost; it travels through the
one dimension into the other; we see it while it
is in the one, as a creature of a world of but two
dimensions would see a three dimensional object only
where it cut the line of that flat plane in which he
lived. And so I say only the very fastest vibrations
move through this world of three dimensions - light,
and sound, and smell, and the like, and light is,
of course, the most powerful. For what else appears,
disappears, comes, and is gone? Not poo, my friend, not
poo.

Wherefore this is the point of the argument I
would make: if this fork were somehow to vibrate -
each cell of it to vibrate - as fast as light - faster
than light - without burning - without that wave
vibration growing in intensity also - psst - it
would be vanished. Where would it be? In the fourth
dimension - in tomorrow, my friend, and tomorrow and
tomorrow - or in yesterday.

6.

His voice sank, the Professor of Applied Science
sighed. I do not know how to take you, Christopher,
he said, But my tea is cold, listening to you.

A fortnight later Christopher Krauss, coming
home with his wife at a respectable hour of the
evening, pointed to the pale path of the Milky Way
high in the dark sweep of heaven above him.

There, he said, Are the fixed stars, whose
light has travelled centuries.

Chilly, said his wife, without looking up.

That light you see is very old, said the
professor. The time it left its star is far in
the past to us - and then we were far in the future.
Now here is that very light, unchanged. Upon the
other hand, a fork . . . .

Tst, Tst, said his wife, and hurried home. But
the professor took the matter up next day with the
man of Applied Science.

Stars, he said, send their light into the future -
yes, yes, in space, too, since light has no gravity
effects. But let us imagine light to have a gravity,
greater than its travelling; it could not travel then
in space, although that would not influence its travel
in time. A fork, for instance, has gravity. It would
stay in space where it was. And a man . . . conceive.

His friend laughed. Well, said Christopher
Krauss, We shall see.

7.

-St 3.

All this was in 1907. Thereafter, for five years the Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry was fashioning inexplicable small machines out of odd metals in his den. At the end of that time he came to a decision: It cannot be done with a machine, he said; that is evident.

For five years more, then, he filled his shelves with quantities of rare drugs; strange odors crept through the house; small explosions took place; finally, for a month, he left his den only to go to his lectures, to his meals, and to bed. His wife suffered a good deal.

Then upon a certain day he came to his friend, very pale, with dark eyes. Come, he said, I have something to show you.

They went together to his den whose walls were high with shelves on which were long rows of thin vials holding liquids of different colors, or powders. On his desk were papers, scrawled with figures, retorts, and at one side, a large mortar and pestle. An indescribable scent hung about everything, a new odor, which seemed to be nothing, and yet to be violent. Christopher Krauss pulled his friend in, and shutting the door to, went without a word to a huge closet in the back of the room. He opened the door, and a small, jolly puppy scampered out,