The main character, the narrator, is good friends with a "mad" scientist, Professor Gibberne. Professor Gibberne is a mighty jester, but also an amazing physiologist, chemist, and medical scientist. He has become bored with these subjects though, and wants to see if he can accelerate the human body to move two times faster. This way people can accomplish twice as many things in a day. This "accelerator will work on the nervous system to accelerate the body. He begins to experiment, and eventually contacts his old friend. Professor Gibberne shares the wonder of his accelerator. He tells how he had taken it once before, but you do not move twice as fast, you move one thousand times faster. Both of the men take a dose, and travel around town. They see many people seemingly frozen in precarious poses. The people look this way because the proffesor and his friend are traveling so many times faster. They are in the park when the acclerator begins to wear off. They seem to appear suddenly to the people in the park, frightening an older gentleman. They are now moving at the same speed as the rest of the world. Professor Gibberne does some more tampering to the accelerator, harnessing its power, and diluting the dose.