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CHAPTER VIII IN TRANSIT
The eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates that Gibbons, the
amateur naturalist of the district, while lying out on the spacious
open downs without a soul within a couple of miles of him, as he
thought, and almost dozing, heard close to him the sound as of a man
coughing, sneezing, and then swearing savagely to himself; and looking,
beheld nothing. Yet the voice was indisputable. It continued to swear
with that breadth and variety that distinguishes the swearing of a
cultivated man. It grew to a climax, diminished again, and died away in
the distance, going as it seemed to him in the direction of Adderdean.
It lifted to a spasmodic sneeze and ended. Gibbons had heard nothing of
the morning's occurrences, but the phenomenon was so striking and
disturbing that his philosophical tranquillity vanished; he got up
hastily, and hurried down the steepness of the hill towards the
village, as fast as he could go.
CHAPTER IX MR. THOMAS MARVEL
You must picture Mr. Thomas Marvel as a person of copious, flexible
visage, a nose of cylindrical protrusion, a liquorish, ample,
fluctuating mouth, and a beard of bristling eccentricity. His figure
inclined to embonpoint; his short limbs accentuated this inclination.
He wore a furry silk hat, and the frequent substitution of twine and
shoe-laces for buttons, apparent at critical points of his costume,
marked a man essentially bachelor.
Mr. Thomas Marvel was sitting with his feet in a ditch by the roadside
over the down towards Adderdean, about a mile and a half out of Iping.
His feet, save for socks of irregular open-work, were bare, his big
toes were broad, and pricked like the ears of a watchful dog. In a
leisurely manner--he did everything in a leisurely manner--he was
contemplating trying on a pair of boots. They were the soundest boots
he had come across for a long time, but too large for him; whereas the
ones he had were, in dry weather, a very comfortable fit, but too
thin-soled for damp. Mr. Thomas Marvel hated roomy shoes, but then he
hated damp. He had never properly thought out which he hated most, and
it was a pleasant day, and there was nothing better to do. So he put
the four shoes in a graceful group on the turf and looked at them. And
seeing them there among the grass and springing agrimony, it suddenly
occurred to him that both pairs were exceedingly ugly to see. He was
not at all startled by a voice behind him.
"They're boots, anyhow," said the Voice.
"They are--charity boots," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with his head on one
side regarding them distastefully; "and which is the ugliest pair in
the whole blessed universe, I'm darned if I know!"
"H'm," said the Voice.
"I've worn worse--in fact, I've worn none. But none so owdacious
ugly--if you'll allow the expression. I've been cadging boots--in
particular--for days. Because I was sick of them. They're sound enough,
of course. But a gentleman on *** sees such a thundering lot of his
boots. And if you'll believe me, I've raised nothing in the whole
blessed country, try as I would, but them. Look at 'em! And a good
country for boots, too, in a general way. But it's just my promiscuous
luck. I've got my boots in this country ten years or more. And then
they treat you like this."
"It's a beast of a country," said the Voice. "And pigs for people."
"Ain't it?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Lord! But them boots! It beats it."
He turned his head over his shoulder to the right, to look at the boots
of his interlocutor with a view to comparisons, and lo! where the boots
of his interlocutor should have been were neither legs nor boots. He
was irradiated by the dawn of a great amazement. "Where are yer?" said
Mr. Thomas Marvel over his shoulder and coming on all fours. He saw a
stretch of empty downs with the wind swaying the remote green-pointed
furze bushes.
"Am I drunk?" said Mr. Marvel. "Have I had visions? Was I talking to
myself? What the--"
"Don't be alarmed," said a Voice.
"None of your ventriloquising me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rising
sharply to his feet. "Where are yer? Alarmed, indeed!"
"Don't be alarmed," repeated the Voice.
"You'll be alarmed in a minute, you silly fool," said Mr. Thomas
Marvel. "Where are yer? Lemme get my mark on yer...
"Are yer buried?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, after an interval.
There was no answer. Mr. Thomas Marvel stood bootless and amazed, his
jacket nearly thrown off.
"Peewit," said a peewit, very remote.
"Peewit, indeed!" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "This ain't no time for
foolery." The down was desolate, east and west, north and south; the
road with its shallow ditches and white bordering stakes, ran smooth
and empty north and south, and, save for that peewit, the blue sky was
empty too. "So help me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, shuffling his coat on
to his shoulders again. "It's the drink! I might ha' known."
"It's not the drink," said the Voice. "You keep your nerves steady."
"Ow!" said Mr. Marvel, and his face grew white amidst its patches.
"It's the drink!" his lips repeated noiselessly. He remained staring
about him, rotating slowly backwards. "I could have swore I heard a
voice," he whispered.
"Of course you did."
"It's there again," said Mr. Marvel, closing his eyes and clasping his
hand on his brow with a tragic gesture. He was suddenly taken by the
collar and shaken violently, and left more dazed than ever. "Don't be a
fool," said the Voice.
"I'm--off--my--blooming--chump," said Mr. Marvel. "It's no good. It's
fretting about them blarsted boots. I'm off my blessed blooming chump.
Or it's spirits."
"Neither one thing nor the other," said the Voice. "Listen!"
"Chump," said Mr. Marvel.
"One minute," said the Voice, penetratingly, tremulous with self-control.
"Well?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with a strange feeling of having been
dug in the chest by a finger.
"You think I'm just imagination? Just imagination?"
"What else can you be?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rubbing the back of his
neck.
"Very well," said the Voice, in a tone of relief. "Then I'm going to
throw flints at you till you think differently."
"But where are yer?"
The Voice made no answer. Whizz came a flint, apparently out of the
air, and missed Mr. Marvel's shoulder by a hair's-breadth. Mr. Marvel,
turning, saw a flint jerk up into the air, trace a complicated path,
hang for a moment, and then fling at his feet with almost invisible
rapidity. He was too amazed to dodge. Whizz it came, and ricochetted
from a bare toe into the ditch. Mr. Thomas Marvel jumped a foot and
howled aloud. Then he started to run, tripped over an unseen obstacle,
and came head over heels into a sitting position.
"Now," said the Voice, as a third stone curved upward and hung in the
air above the ***. "Am I imagination?"
Mr. Marvel by way of reply struggled to his feet, and was immediately
rolled over again. He lay quiet for a moment. "If you struggle any
more," said the Voice, "I shall throw the flint at your head."
"It's a fair do," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, sitting up, taking his
wounded toe in hand and fixing his eye on the third missile. "I don't
understand it. Stones flinging themselves. Stones talking. Put yourself
down. Rot away. I'm done."
The third flint fell.
"It's very simple," said the Voice. "I'm an invisible man."
"Tell us something I don't know," said Mr. Marvel, gasping with pain.
"Where you've hid--how you do it--I don't know. I'm beat."
"That's all," said the Voice. "I'm invisible. That's what I want you to
understand."
"Anyone could see that. There is no need for you to be so confounded
impatient, mister. Now then. Give us a notion. How are you hid?"
"I'm invisible. That's the great point. And what I want you to
understand is this--"
"But whereabouts?" interrupted Mr. Marvel.
"Here! Six yards in front of you."
"Oh, come! I ain't blind. You'll be telling me next you're just thin
air. I'm not one of your ignorant tramps--"
"Yes, I am--thin air. You're looking through me."
"What! Ain't there any stuff to you. Vox et--what is it?--jabber. Is it
that?"
"I am just a human being--solid, needing food and drink, needing
covering too--But I'm invisible. You see? Invisible. Simple idea.
Invisible."
"What, real like?"
"Yes, real."
"Let's have a hand of you," said Marvel, "if you are real. It won't be
so darn out-of-the-way like, then--Lord!" he said, "how you made me
jump!--gripping me like that!"
He felt the hand that had closed round his wrist with his disengaged
fingers, and his fingers went timorously up the arm, patted a muscular
chest, and explored a bearded face. Marvel's face was astonishment.
"I'm dashed!" he said. "If this don't beat ***-fighting! Most
remarkable!--And there I can see a rabbit clean through you, 'arf a
mile away! Not a bit of you visible--except--"
He scrutinised the apparently empty space keenly. "You 'aven't been
eatin' bread and cheese?" he asked, holding the invisible arm.
"You're quite right, and it's not quite assimilated into the system."
"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel. "Sort of ghostly, though."
"Of course, all this isn't half so wonderful as you think."
"It's quite wonderful enough for my modest wants," said Mr. Thomas
Marvel. "Howjer manage it! How the dooce is it done?"
"It's too long a story. And besides--"
"I tell you, the whole business fairly beats me," said Mr. Marvel.
"What I want to say at present is this: I need help. I have come to
that--I came upon you suddenly. I was wandering, mad with rage, naked,
impotent. I could have murdered. And I saw you--"
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel.
"I came up behind you--hesitated--went on--"
Mr. Marvel's expression was eloquent.
"--then stopped. 'Here,' I said, 'is an outcast like myself. This is
the man for me.' So I turned back and came to you--you. And--"
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. "But I'm all in a tizzy. May I ask--How is it?
And what you may be requiring in the way of help?--Invisible!"
"I want you to help me get clothes--and shelter--and then, with other
things. I've left them long enough. If you won't--well! But you
will--must."
"Look here," said Mr. Marvel. "I'm too flabbergasted. Don't knock me
about any more. And leave me go. I must get steady a bit. And you've
pretty near broken my toe. It's all so unreasonable. Empty downs, empty
sky. Nothing visible for miles except the *** of Nature. And then
comes a voice. A voice out of heaven! And stones! And a fist--Lord!"
"Pull yourself together," said the Voice, "for you have to do the job
I've chosen for you."
Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were round.
"I've chosen you," said the Voice. "You are the only man except some of
those fools down there, who knows there is such a thing as an invisible
man. You have to be my helper. Help me--and I will do great things for
you. An invisible man is a man of power." He stopped for a moment to
sneeze violently.
"But if you betray me," he said, "if you fail to do as I direct you--"
He paused and tapped Mr. Marvel's shoulder smartly. Mr. Marvel gave a
yelp of terror at the touch. "I don't want to betray you," said Mr.
Marvel, edging away from the direction of the fingers. "Don't you go
a-thinking that, whatever you do. All I want to do is to help you--just
tell me what I got to do. (Lord!) Whatever you want done, that I'm most
willing to do."
CHAPTER X MR. MARVEL'S VISIT TO IPING
After the first gusty panic had spent itself Iping became
argumentative. Scepticism suddenly reared its head--rather nervous
scepticism, not at all assured of its back, but scepticism
nevertheless. It is so much easier not to believe in an invisible man;
and those who had actually seen him dissolve into air, or felt the
strength of his arm, could be counted on the fingers of two hands. And
of these witnesses Mr. Wadgers was presently missing, having retired
impregnably behind the bolts and bars of his own house, and Jaffers was
lying stunned in the parlour of the "Coach and Horses." Great and
strange ideas transcending experience often have less effect upon men
and women than smaller, more tangible considerations. Iping was gay
with bunting, and everybody was in gala dress. Whit Monday had been
looked forward to for a month or more. By the afternoon even those who
believed in the Unseen were beginning to resume their little amusements
in a tentative fashion, on the supposition that he had quite gone away,
and with the sceptics he was already a jest. But people, sceptics and
believers alike, were remarkably sociable all that day.
Haysman's meadow was gay with a tent, in which Mrs. Bunting and other
ladies were preparing tea, while, without, the Sunday-school children
ran races and played games under the noisy guidance of the curate and
the Misses Cuss and Sackbut. No doubt there was a slight uneasiness in
the air, but people for the most part had the sense to conceal whatever
imaginative qualms they experienced. On the village green an inclined
strong [rope?], down which, clinging the while to a pulley-swung
handle, one could be hurled violently against a sack at the other end,
came in for considerable favour among the adolescents, as also did the
swings and the cocoanut shies. There was also promenading, and the
steam organ attached to a small roundabout filled the air with a
pungent flavour of oil and with equally pungent music. Members of the
club, who had attended church in the morning, were splendid in badges
of pink and green, and some of the gayer-minded had also adorned their
bowler hats with brilliant-coloured favours of ribbon. Old Fletcher,
whose conceptions of holiday-making were severe, was visible through
the jasmine about his window or through the open door (whichever way
you chose to look), poised delicately on a plank supported on two
chairs, and whitewashing the ceiling of his front room.
About four o'clock a stranger entered the village from the direction of
the downs. He was a short, stout person in an extraordinarily shabby
top hat, and he appeared to be very much out of breath. His cheeks were
alternately limp and tightly puffed. His mottled face was apprehensive,
and he moved with a sort of reluctant alacrity. He turned the corner of
the church, and directed his way to the "Coach and Horses." Among
others old Fletcher remembers seeing him, and indeed the old gentleman
was so struck by his peculiar agitation that he inadvertently allowed a
quantity of whitewash to run down the brush into the sleeve of his coat
while regarding him.
This stranger, to the perceptions of the proprietor of the cocoanut
shy, appeared to be talking to himself, and Mr. Huxter remarked the
same thing. He stopped at the foot of the "Coach and Horses" steps,
and, according to Mr. Huxter, appeared to undergo a severe internal
struggle before he could induce himself to enter the house. Finally he
marched up the steps, and was seen by Mr. Huxter to turn to the left
and open the door of the parlour. Mr. Huxter heard voices from within
the room and from the bar apprising the man of his error. "That room's
private!" said Hall, and the stranger shut the door clumsily and went
into the bar.
In the course of a few minutes he reappeared, wiping his lips with the
back of his hand with an air of quiet satisfaction that somehow
impressed Mr. Huxter as assumed. He stood looking about him for some
moments, and then Mr. Huxter saw him walk in an oddly furtive manner
towards the gates of the yard, upon which the parlour window opened.
The stranger, after some hesitation, leant against one of the
gate-posts, produced a short clay pipe, and prepared to fill it. His
fingers trembled while doing so. He lit it clumsily, and folding his
arms began to smoke in a languid attitude, an attitude which his
occasional glances up the yard altogether belied.
All this Mr. Huxter saw over the canisters of the tobacco window, and
the singularity of the man's behaviour prompted him to maintain his
observation.
Presently the stranger stood up abruptly and put his pipe in his
pocket. Then he vanished into the yard. Forthwith Mr. Huxter,
conceiving he was witness of some petty larceny, leapt round his
counter and ran out into the road to intercept the thief. As he did so,
Mr. Marvel reappeared, his hat askew, a big bundle in a blue
table-cloth in one hand, and three books tied together--as it proved
afterwards with the Vicar's braces--in the other. Directly he saw
Huxter he gave a sort of gasp, and turning sharply to the left, began
to run. "Stop, thief!" cried Huxter, and set off after him. Mr.
Huxter's sensations were vivid but brief. He saw the man just before
him and spurting briskly for the church corner and the hill road. He
saw the village flags and festivities beyond, and a face or so turned
towards him. He bawled, "Stop!" again. He had hardly gone ten strides
before his shin was caught in some mysterious fashion, and he was no
longer running, but flying with inconceivable rapidity through the air.
He saw the ground suddenly close to his face. The world seemed to
splash into a million whirling specks of light, and subsequent
proceedings interested him no more.
CHAPTER XI IN THE "COACH AND HORSES"
Now in order clearly to understand what had happened in the inn, it is
necessary to go back to the moment when Mr. Marvel first came into view
of Mr. Huxter's window.
At that precise moment Mr. Cuss and Mr. Bunting were in the parlour.
They were seriously investigating the strange occurrences of the
morning, and were, with Mr. Hall's permission, making a thorough
examination of the Invisible Man's belongings. Jaffers had partially
recovered from his fall and had gone home in the charge of his
sympathetic friends. The stranger's scattered garments had been removed
by Mrs. Hall and the room tidied up. And on the table under the window
where the stranger had been wont to work, Cuss had hit almost at once
on three big books in manuscript labelled "Diary."
"Diary!" said Cuss, putting the three books on the table. "Now, at any
rate, we shall learn something." The Vicar stood with his hands on the
table.
"Diary," repeated Cuss, sitting down, putting two volumes to support
the third, and opening it. "H'm--no name on the fly-leaf.
Bother!--cypher. And figures."
The vicar came round to look over his shoulder.
Cuss turned the pages over with a face suddenly disappointed.
"I'm--dear me! It's all cypher, Bunting."
"There are no diagrams?" asked Mr. Bunting. "No illustrations throwing
light--"
"See for yourself," said Mr. Cuss. "Some of it's mathematical and some
of it's Russian or some such language (to judge by the letters), and
some of it's Greek. Now the Greek I thought you--"
"Of course," said Mr. Bunting, taking out and wiping his spectacles and
feeling suddenly very uncomfortable--for he had no Greek left in his
mind worth talking about; "yes--the Greek, of course, may furnish a
clue."
"I'll find you a place."
"I'd rather glance through the volumes first," said Mr. Bunting, still
wiping. "A general impression first, Cuss, and then, you know, we can
go looking for clues."
He coughed, put on his glasses, arranged them fastidiously, coughed
again, and wished something would happen to avert the seemingly
inevitable exposure. Then he took the volume Cuss handed him in a
leisurely manner. And then something did happen.
The door opened suddenly.
Both gentlemen started violently, looked round, and were relieved to
see a sporadically rosy face beneath a furry silk hat. "Tap?" asked the
face, and stood staring.
"No," said both gentlemen at once.
"Over the other side, my man," said Mr. Bunting. And "Please shut that
door," said Mr. Cuss, irritably.
"All right," said the intruder, as it seemed in a low voice curiously
different from the huskiness of its first inquiry. "Right you are,"
said the intruder in the former voice. "Stand clear!" and he vanished
and closed the door.
"A sailor, I should judge," said Mr. Bunting. "Amusing fellows, they
are. Stand clear! indeed. A nautical term, referring to his getting
back out of the room, I suppose."
"I daresay so," said Cuss. "My nerves are all loose to-day. It quite
made me jump--the door opening like that."
Mr. Bunting smiled as if he had not jumped. "And now," he said with a
sigh, "these books."
Someone sniffed as he did so.
"One thing is indisputable," said Bunting, drawing up a chair next to
that of Cuss. "There certainly have been very strange things happen in
Iping during the last few days--very strange. I cannot of course
believe in this absurd invisibility story--"
"It's incredible," said Cuss--"incredible. But the fact remains that I
saw--I certainly saw right down his sleeve--"
"But did you--are you sure? Suppose a mirror, for instance--
hallucinations are so easily produced. I don't know if you have ever
seen a really good conjuror--"
"I won't argue again," said Cuss. "We've thrashed that out, Bunting.
And just now there's these books--Ah! here's some of what I take to be
Greek! Greek letters certainly."
He pointed to the middle of the page. Mr. Bunting flushed slightly and
brought his face nearer, apparently finding some difficulty with his
glasses. Suddenly he became aware of a strange feeling at the nape of
his neck. He tried to raise his head, and encountered an immovable
resistance. The feeling was a curious pressure, the grip of a heavy,
firm hand, and it bore his chin irresistibly to the table. "Don't move,
little men," whispered a voice, "or I'll brain you both!" He looked
into the face of Cuss, close to his own, and each saw a horrified
reflection of his own sickly astonishment.
"I'm sorry to handle you so roughly," said the Voice, "but it's
unavoidable."
"Since when did you learn to pry into an investigator's private
memoranda," said the Voice; and two chins struck the table
simultaneously, and two sets of teeth rattled.
"Since when did you learn to invade the private rooms of a man in
misfortune?" and the concussion was repeated.
"Where have they put my clothes?"
"Listen," said the Voice. "The windows are fastened and I've taken the
key out of the door. I am a fairly strong man, and I have the poker
handy--besides being invisible. There's not the slightest doubt that I
could kill you both and get away quite easily if I wanted to--do you
understand? Very well. If I let you go will you promise not to try any
nonsense and do what I tell you?"
The vicar and the doctor looked at one another, and the doctor pulled a
face. "Yes," said Mr. Bunting, and the doctor repeated it. Then the
pressure on the necks relaxed, and the doctor and the vicar sat up,
both very red in the face and wriggling their heads.
"Please keep sitting where you are," said the Invisible Man. "Here's
the poker, you see."
"When I came into this room," continued the Invisible Man, after
presenting the poker to the tip of the nose of each of his visitors, "I
did not expect to find it occupied, and I expected to find, in addition
to my books of memoranda, an outfit of clothing. Where is it? No--don't
rise. I can see it's gone. Now, just at present, though the days are
quite warm enough for an invisible man to run about stark, the evenings
are quite chilly. I want clothing--and other accommodation; and I must
also have those three books."
End of Chapter eight through eleven