"I know," I said, "that it is perfectly simple. But somehow it just
sounds like words to me."

"It's perfectly clear, Horace," he insisted. "But remember this
when you try to work it out; it is necessary to use motion as a
translator of time into space, or of space into time."

"I don't intend to work it out," I said irritably. "But I mean to
use motion as a translator of the time, which is 1:30 in the morning,
to take me to a certain space, which is where I live."

But as it happened, I did not go into my house when I reached it.
I was wide awake, and I perceived, on looking up at my wife's windows,
that the lights were out. As it is her custom to wait up for me on
those rare occasions when I spend an evening away from home, I
surmised that she was comfortably asleep, and made my way to the
pharmacy to which the Wellses' governess had referred.

The night-clerk was in the prescription-room behind the shop. He
had fixed himself comfortably on two chairs, with an old table-cover
over his knee and a half-empty bottle of sarsaparilla on a wooden
box beside him. He did not waken until I spoke to him.

"Sorry to rouse you, Jim," I said.

He flung off the cover and jumped up, upsetting the bottle, which
trickled a stale stream to the floor. "Oh, that's all right, Mr.
Johnson, I wasn't asleep, anyhow."