THE TIME MACHINE

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to remark these apertures; for when I pointed to this one, and tried
to frame a question about it in their tongue, they were still more
visibly distressed and turned away. But they were interested by my
matches, and I struck some to amuse them. I tried them again about
the well, and again I failed. So presently I left them, meaning to
go back to Weena, and see what I could get from her. But my mind was
already in revolution; my guesses and impressions were slipping and
sliding to a new adjustment. I had now a clue to the import of these
wells, to the ventilating towers, to the mystery of the ghosts; to
say nothing of a hint at the meaning of the bronze gates and the
fate of the Time Machine! And very vaguely there came a suggestion
towards the solution of the economic problem that had puzzled me.

'Here was the new view. Plainly, this second species of Man was
subterranean. There were three circumstances in particular which
made me think that its rare emergence above ground was the outcome
of a long-continued underground habit. In the first place, there was