Paul had become interested in creating a machine which would take the spectators into the past or future after reading a fantastic tale of H. G. Wells called _The Time Machine_, published in 1894. Paul and Wells talked the matter over, the one a designer and inventor, the other a successful writer gifted with an extravagant imagination. A British patent was applied for but no model or apparatus was ever devised because the money for such an undertaking was not found. The Paul-Wells Time Machine was to be an elaborate affair. Spectators were to be seated on platforms which would move about; adding to the illusion, magic lanterns and motion picture projectors were to flash pictures on all sides. It was another application of the old Phantasmagoria idea to achieve effects by moving the projectors--and in this case, the audience also. Similar effects are achieved with much less trouble, both for the showman and the spectator, in the modern story motion picture. In the Spring of 1895, Paul made an agreement with Birt Acres by which Acres would make films with a camera constructed by Paul. Previously Paul had been using Edison films but the supply was cut off. His camera was much smaller and more portable than the Edison model. Acres claimed that he had started work on a motion picture camera as far back as 1889 but the effort had not been very successful. By the end of 1893 Acres said he had developed a camera which used one lens or a battery of twelve (Uchatius fashion) and had devoted himself to improving the apparatus instead of “seeking a bubble reputation as a music hall showman,” as he himself put it. In 1897 when he had correspondence with Wordsworth Donisthorpe over the latter’s early work in motion pictures, Acres was not happy about his motion picture associations, for he said: “Every Tom, Dick and Harry is now claiming to be the inventor and first exhibitor of these animated photographs and I can fully sympathize with Mr. Wordsworth Donisthorpe, inasmuch as some one else has obtained credit for his invention. My own experience with various adventurers is not unique.” Paul’s first camera design had an intermittent movement featuring a clamping and unclamping action which was rather hard on the celluloid film made by the Hyatt brothers in Newark, N. J., imported to England and coated for photographic use by the Blair Company. Shortly thereafter, Paul changed to an intermittent movement having a seven-point Maltese Cross. This was an important development.