Time After Time by Karl Alexander Page A

then raised his eyebrows.
    â€œUmm.”
    He took another bite with gusto. The Big Mac was exquisite. Perhaps the most delicious food he had ever eaten.
    He devoured it and was about to go back and purchase another when he felt someone staring at him. He turned and saw a small boy trying to make sense out of his old-fashioned clothes and drooping walrus mustache.
    â€œYou in a commercial, or what?”
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    By the time H.G. found a respectable clothing store he was used to the traffic and surprised that he seemed to be moving about faster than the machines. Although his ears had not yet adjusted to the downtown level of decibels, he felt light-years away from his bizarre night in the park. And there was still a smattering of old buildings in the city, reminiscent of nineteenth-century London. Their gray-stone façades reassured him, whereas the reflective exteriors of the newer buildings made him apprehensive. Still, he now had 1979 food lining his stomach, and once contemporary fashion draped his form, he wouldn’t have anything to worry about—except Leslie John Stephenson.
    He entered the clothiers and was patient with the salesman, who couldn’t get over his heavy, four-button (ripped and dirty) tweeds; high, matching vest; white shirt and yellow silk tie.
    â€œIs this what they’re wearing in London now?”

    â€œIt’s been a while since I left.”
    The salesman suggested high-waisted, prefaded jeans, a tailored shirt with ruffles, topped off with a snap-brim hat for starters. But once H.G. learned that some men did indeed still wear suits and ties, there was no dissuading him. He selected a ready-made light-brown two-button suit with a vest, a beige dress shirt, a maroon tie and dark-brown Oxfords. The salesman was impressed with his impeccable taste.
    In the dressing room, H.G. put on the shirt and pants, felt for the buttons and was momentarily bewildered until he found the zipper that closed the fly in half a second. He raised his eyebrows, tucked in the shirt and moved about a little. Great Scott, what comfort, he thought. The trousers were not nearly as bulky as his old ones. Also, they were lined and cut to fit his shape! And the shirt—it didn’t balloon out with yards of unnecessary cloth that needed blousing; it just sort of naturally draped around him as if he’d worn it for years. And the feel of the material was almost electric!
    He slipped into the vest, quickly knotted the tie, threw on the coat and hurried out of the dressing room. He felt liberated—as if the clothes he had worn before had been designed for an elephant. The ones he had on now made him feel good and smart and sophisticated. He did a little twirl in front of the mirror and beamed. Then he twisted his mustache into shape, stepped back and admired himself—still a distinguished English gentleman, but more important, a late-twentieth-century human being. Who said that clothes did not make the man?
    He strode to the cash register where the salesman waited, hovering over the bill.
    â€œYou look very nice, sir, very nice.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œIt comes to $476.18.”

    H.G. slowly counted out the money, not yet familiar with American currency, but astute enough to realize that he was paying a damnable amount for a haberdashery. “Doesn’t go very far, does it?”
    â€œNot anymore, sir.”
    â€œIt isn’t the pound, of course,” he added provincially.
    â€œThat’s for sure.” The salesman laughed. “I hear they’re going to devalue it again.”
    â€œThe pound?” H.G. was aghast.
    â€œThat’s right. You got any left, I’d exchange them for good, old, almighty Yankee dollars.”
    He hurried out of the store, not bothering to take his old clothes. The salesman had given him an idea. If Leslie John Stephenson were to survive in San Francisco, then he—just like H. G. Wells—would have to have