tower crept in and stretched across the room, now illuminated only by
occasional beams from the cloud-curtained moon. At the other end of
the table sat a peak-faced little gentleman, clean-shaven, in
full-bottomed wig.

"Forgive me," said the little gentleman. He spoke in English, with a
strong accent. "But it seems to me here is a case where two parties
might be of service to one another."

The six fellow-travellers round the table looked at one another, but
none spoke. The idea that came to each of them, as they explained to
one another later, was that without remembering it they had taken
their candles and had gone to bed. This was surely a dream.

"It would greatly assist me," continued the little peak-faced
gentleman, "in experiments I am conducting into the phenomena of human
tendencies, if you would allow me to put your lives back twenty
years."

Still no one of the six replied. It seemed to them that the little
old gentleman must have been sitting there among them all the time,
unnoticed by them.

"Judging from your talk this evening," continued the peak-faced little
gentleman, "you should welcome my offer. You appear to me to be one
and all of exceptional intelligence. You perceive the mistakes that
you have made: you understand the causes. The future veiled, you
could not help yourselves. What I propose to do is to put you back
twenty years. You will be boys and girls again, but with this
difference: that the knowledge of the future, so far as it relates to