When a group of friends gather for a dinner party, things get interesting when the host, a scientist, describes his theories on time and space. He explains that he believes time is in the fourth dimension and that it could be traveled forward and backward. He promptly introduces his newest creation, a small time machine, and makes it travel into time. The guests, mostly thinking it's sleight of hand, are in disbelief, but then he shows them a larger version of the machine which he says will allow him to travel through time. At his next dinner party the following week, the host who is called The Time Traveler, shows up late and disheveled. Once he cleans up and eats, they all retreat to the smoking room here he expounds on what happened on his recent time travels that had taken him forward in time more than 800,000 years. He finds that humanity has evolved into two classes: the peaceful, simple, and lazy Eloi, and the predatory working-class Morlocks. After staying with and learning much about the Eloi, and narrowly escaping the Merlocks, he gets back to his time machine and travels even further into the future before finally returning to his home and sharing the story with his friends.