After the Traveller’s miniature time machine makes its way back to Lilliput and the Emperor scares himself witless by a short trip forward in time, Pilibosh (a court carpenter) accidentally takes it out for a longer spin, finding H.G. Wells and Irish leprechauns along the way.
The story does not begin with Pilibosh. In a bewildering cosmological sense it does not begin at all, nor does it end. But that is a matter best left to the philosophers.

Variants

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  1. “Short Timer” by John Morressy, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April 1983.
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by John Morressy