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 toward Adderdean, about a mile and a half out
of Iping. His feet, save for socks of irregular openwork, 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 boots, 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 boots 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 tramp sees such a
thundering lot of his boots. And if you'll believe me, I've raised
nothing in the whole blessed county, try as I would, but THEM. Look
at 'em! And a good county for boots, too, in a general way. But it's
just my promiscuous luck. I've got my boots in this county ten years
or more. And then they treat you like this."
"It's a beast of a county," 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 turned his head over his shoulder to the left, and there
also were neither legs nor boots. He was irradiated by the dawn of a
great amazement. "Where are yar?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel
over his shoulder and coming round on all fours. He saw a stretch of
empty downs with the wind swaying and 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 you 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. Whiz 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. Whiz it came,
and ricocheted 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 tramp. "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
missle. "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."
"Any one 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 touch 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
cock-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 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 fair 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 dizzy.
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 bosom 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."
