get what I
told you," he said, turning the contents of the measure into a glass in
the manner of an Italian waiter measuring whisky. "Sit with the eyes
tightly shut and in absolute stillness for two minutes," he said. "Then
you will hear me speak."

He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass.

"By-the-by," he said, "don't put your glass down. Keep it in your hand and
rest your hand on your knee. Yes--so. And now----"

He raised his glass.

"The New Accelerator," I said.

"The New Accelerator," he answered, and we touched glasses and drank, and
instantly I closed my eyes.

You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one has taken
"gas." For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then I heard Gibberne
telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened my eyes. There he stood as
he had been standing, glass still in hand. It was empty, that was all the
difference.

"Well?" said I.

"Nothing out of the way?"

"Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more."

"Sounds?"

"Things are still," I said. "By Jove! yes! They _are_ still. Except
the sort of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things. What
is it?"

"Analysed sounds," I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced at the
window. "Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed in that way
before?"

I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen, as it
were, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze.

"No," said I; "that's odd."

"And here," he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally I
winced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing, it did not
even seem to stir; it hung in mid-air--motionless. "Roughly speaking,"
said Gibberne, "an object in these latitudes falls 16 feet in the first
second. This glass is falling 16 feet in a second now. Only, you see, it
hasn't been falling yet for the hundredth part of a second. That gives you
some idea of the pace of my Accelerator."

And he waved his hand round and round, over and under the slowly sinking
glass. Finally he took it by the bottom, pulled it down and placed it very
carefully on the table. "Eh?" he said to me, and laughed.

"That seems all right," I said, and began very gingerly to raise myself
from my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and comfortable, and
quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all over. My heart, for
example, was beating a thousa