The Invisible Man
By H.G. Wells
Chapter 2
Part Two : Mr. Teddy Henfrey's First Impressions
After
Mrs. Hall had left the room, he remained standing in front of
the
fire, glaring, so Mr. Henfrey puts it, at the clock-mending. Mr.
Henfrey
not only took off the hands of the clock, and the face, but
extracted
the works; and he tried to work in as slow and quiet and
unassuming
a manner as possible. He worked with the lamp close to
him,
and the green shade threw a brilliant light upon his hands,
and
upon the frame and wheels, and left the rest of the room
shadowy.
When he looked up, coloured patches swam in his eyes.
Being
constitutionally of a curious nature, he had removed the
works--a
quite unnecessary proceeding--with the idea of delaying his
departure
and perhaps falling into conversation with the stranger.
But
the stranger stood there, perfectly silent and still. So still,
it
got on Henfrey's nerves. He felt alone in the room and looked up,
and
there, grey and dim, was the bandaged head and huge blue lenses
staring
fixedly, with a mist of green spots drifting in front of
them.
It was so uncanny to Henfrey that for a minute they remained
staring
blankly at one another. Then Henfrey looked down again. Very
uncomfortable
position! One would like to say something. Should he
remark
that the weather was very cold for the time of year?
He
looked up as if to take aim with that introductory shot. "The
weather--"
he began.
"Why
don't you finish and go?" said the rigid figure, evidently in
a
state of painfully suppressed rage. "All you've got to do is to
fix
the hour-hand on its axle. You're simply humbugging--"
"Certainly,
sir--one minute more. I overlooked--" and Mr. Henfrey
finished
and went.
But
he went feeling excessively annoyed. "Damn it!" said Mr. Henfrey
to
himself, trudging down the village through the thawing snow; "a
man
must do a clock at times, surely."
And
again, "Can't a man look at you?--Ugly!"
And
yet again, "Seemingly not. If the police was wanting you you
couldn't
be more wropped and bandaged."
At
Gleeson's corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the
stranger's
hostess at the "Coach and Horses," and who now drove
the
Iping conveyance, when occasional people required it, to
Sidderbridge
Junction, coming towards him on his return from that
place.
Hall had evidently been "stopping a bit" at Sidderbridge,
to
judge by his driving. "'Ow do, Teddy?" he said, passing.
"You
got a rum un up home!" said Teddy.
Hall
very sociably pulled up. "What's that?" he asked.
"Rum-looking
customer stopping at the 'Coach and Horses,'" said
Teddy.
"My sakes!"
And
he proceeded to give Hall a vivid description of his grotesque
guest.
"Looks a bit like a disguise, don't it? I'd like to see a
man's
face if I had him stopping in _my_ place," said Henfrey. "But
women
are that trustful--where strangers are concerned. He's took
your
rooms and he ain't even given a name, Hall."
"You
don't say so!" said Hall, who was a man of sluggish apprehension.
"Yes,"
said Teddy. "By the week. Whatever he is, you can't get rid
of
him under the week. And he's got a lot of luggage coming
to-morrow,
so he says. Let's hope it won't be stones in boxes, Hall."
He
told Hall how his aunt at Hastings had been swindled by a
stranger
with empty portmanteaux. Altogether he left Hall vaguely
suspicious.
"Get up, old girl," said Hall. "I s'pose I must see
'bout
this."
Teddy
trudged on his way with his mind considerably relieved.
Instead
of "seeing 'bout it," however, Hall on his return was
severely
rated by his wife on the length of time he had spent in
Sidderbridge,
and his mild inquiries were answered snappishly and
in
a manner not to the point. But the seed of suspicion Teddy
had
sown germinated in the mind of Mr. Hall in spite of these
discouragements.
"You wim' don't know everything," said Mr. Hall,
resolved
to ascertain more about the personality of his guest at
the
earliest possible opportunity. And after the stranger had gone
to
bed, which he did about half-past nine, Mr. Hall went very
aggressively
into the parlour and looked very hard at his wife's
furniture,
just to show that the stranger wasn't master there,
and
scrutinised closely and a little contemptuously a sheet of
mathematical
computations the stranger had left. When retiring
for
the night he instructed Mrs. Hall to look very closely at
the
stranger's luggage when it came next day.
"You
mind your own business, Hall," said Mrs. Hall, "and I'll mind
mine."
She
was all the more inclined to snap at Hall because the stranger
was
undoubtedly an unusually strange sort of stranger, and she was
by
no means assured about him in her own mind. In the middle of the
night
she woke up dreaming of huge white heads like turnips, that
came
trailing after her, at the end of interminable necks, and with
vast
black eyes. But being a sensible woman, she subdued her
terrors
and turned over and went to sleep again.
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