Why does the Time Traveler show up late?

       The time traveler states that he has taken taken the time machine on a trip into the future. He says that he had decided to test it before the dinner and has actually been gone for a long time. He believes that he has seen the future and it is not so great. "I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what was to come next as i felt then."(22) By this, he means that what he had encountered was just as bad as putting a pistol to his head. He lands in the year 802701 and is greeted by the frail and simple future humans. They are known as the Eloi.