Question

excerpt from the time machine
by h.g. wells
1 \i told some of you last thursday of the principles of the time machine, and showed you
the actual thing itself, incomplete in the workshop. there it is now, a little travel-worn, truly;
and one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of its sound enough.
i expected to finish it on friday; but on friday, when the putting together was nearly done, i
found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this i had to get
remade; so that the thing was not complete until this morning. it was at ten oclock today
that the first of all time machines began its career. i gave it a last tap, tried all the screws
again, put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod, and sat myself in the saddle...i took the
starting lever in one hand and the stopping one in the other, pressed the first, and almost
immediately the second. i seemed to reel; i felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and,
looking round, i saw the laboratory exactly as before. had anything happened? for a
moment i suspected that my intellect had tricked me. then i noted the clock. a moment
before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearly half-past
three!
2 \i drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands, and went off
with a thud. the laboratory got hazy and went dark. mrs. watchett came in and walked,
apparently without seeing me, towards the garden door. i suppose it took her a minute or so
to traverse the place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. i pressed
the lever over to its extreme position. the night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in
another moment came tomorrow. the laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever
fainter. tomorrow night came black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster
still. an eddying murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb confusedness descended on my
mind.

how does the scientist turn on the time machine?
a by tightening the shortened nickel support bar
b by pushing the machines activation handle
c by tapping the damaged ivory support bar
d by adding oil to the quartz operating rod

Explanation:

The excerpt states that the scientist took the starting lever in one hand, pressed it to activate the time machine. This matches option B, while other options describe preparatory or unrelated actions (tightening a bar is not mentioned, tapping the ivory bar is a final check, adding oil is a pre-start step).

Answer:

B by pushing the machine's activation handle