Hanville Svetz, the main character, is a time traveler. His job is to go back in time before the Atomic era and retrieve extinct animals for display in his own time. Like most people of his time, Svetz is xenophobic, which makes his job especially tough: "Svetz shuddered. Of all the things he hated about his profession, this was the worst; the ride home, staring up at a strange and dangerous extinct animal." In this case, he has captured a wolf. He is not an imposing figure, only a "pale, slender young man topped with thin blond hair." He seems like an ordinary man working at an extraordinary job, and he tends to deal with the problems that arise in his work much as most people would.

Much of the humor of "There Is a Wolf in My Time Machine" depends on Svetz's not...