two
things together must necessarily work an entire revolution in civilised
existence. It is the beginning of our escape from that Time Garment
of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator will enable us to
concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact upon any moment or occasion
that demands our utmost sense and vigour, the Retarder will enable us
to pass in passive tranquillity through infinite hardship and tedium.
Perhaps I am a little optimistic about the Retarder, which has indeed
still to be discovered, but about the Accelerator there is no possible
sort of doubt whatever. Its appearance upon the market in a convenient,
controllable, and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months.
It will be obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green
bottles, at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no
means excessive price. Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called,
and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths: one in 200, one
in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and white labels
respectively.

No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things
possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even
criminal proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging, as
it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations it
will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of
the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a
matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside our province.
We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and, as for the
consequences--we shall see.

9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION

My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural
mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam
through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates
irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has come
with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an elaborate
clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination to be firm
and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant alike. He is a
sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many of the secret
practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather than interesting
things. His conversation is copious and given much to needless detail.
By many, indeed, his intercourse is condemned, to put it plainly, as