"No," he answered, promptly, "I am not Time himself. And why should you think so? Have I a scythe? Have I an hour-glass? Have I a forelock? Do I look so very old, then?"
I examined him more carefully to answer this last question, and the more I scrutinized him the more difficult I found it to declare his age. At first I had thought him to be forty, perhaps, or of a certainty less than fifty. But now, though his hair was black, though his eye was bright, though his step was firm, though his gestures were free and sweeping, I had my doubts; and I thought I could perceive, one after another, many impalpable signs of extreme old age.
Then, all at once, he grew restive under my fixed gaze.
"But it is not about me that we need to waste time now," he said, impatiently. "You have seen what two of my instruments contain; would you like now to examine the contents of the other two?"
I answered in the affirmative.
"The two you have looked into are gratuitous," he continued. "For what you beheld in them there is no charge. But a sight of the visions in the other two or in either one of them must be paid for. So far, you are welcome as my guest; but if you wish to see any more you must pay the price."
I asked what the charge was, as I thrust my hand into my pocket to be certain that I had my purse with me.
He saw my gesture, and he smiled once more.
"The visions I can set before you in those two instruments you have not yet looked into are visions of your own life," he said. "In that stand there," and he indicated one behind my back, "you can see five of the most important episodes of your past."
I withdrew my hand from my pocket. "I thank you," I said, "but I know my own past, and I have no wish to see it again, however cheap the spectacle."