The Invisible Man
By H.G. Wells
Chapter 3
The Thousand and One Bottles
Part One
So it was that on the
twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning
of the thaw, this singular
person fell out of infinity into Iping
village. Next day his
luggage arrived through the slush--and very
remarkable luggage it
was. There were a couple of trunks indeed,
such as a rational man
might need, but in addition there were
a box of books--big, fat
books, of which some were just in an
incomprehensible
handwriting--and a dozen or more crates, boxes,
and cases, containing
objects packed in straw, as it seemed to
Hall, tugging with a
casual curiosity at the straw--glass bottles.
The stranger, muffled in
hat, coat, gloves, and wrapper, came out
impatiently to meet
Fearenside's cart, while Hall was having a word
or so of gossip
preparatory to helping bring them in. Out he came,
not noticing Fearenside's
dog, who was sniffing in a _dilettante_
spirit at Hall's legs.
"Come along with those boxes," he said.
"I've been waiting
long enough."
And he came down the
steps towards the tail of the cart as if to
lay hands on the smaller
crate.
No sooner had
Fearenside's dog caught sight of him, however, than
it began to bristle and
growl savagely, and when he rushed down the
steps it gave an
undecided hop, and then sprang straight at his
hand. "Whup!"
cried Hall, jumping back, for he was no hero with
dogs, and Fearenside
howled, "Lie down!" and snatched his whip.
They saw the dog's teeth
had slipped the hand, heard a kick, saw the
dog execute a flanking
jump and get home on the stranger's leg, and
heard the rip of his
trousering. Then the finer end of Fearenside's
whip reached his
property, and the dog, yelping with dismay,
retreated under the
wheels of the waggon. It was all the business of
a swift half-minute. No
one spoke, everyone shouted. The stranger
glanced swiftly at his
torn glove and at his leg, made as if he
would stoop to the
latter, then turned and rushed swiftly up the
steps into the inn. They
heard him go headlong across the passage
and up the uncarpeted
stairs to his bedroom.
"You brute,
you!" said Fearenside, climbing off the waggon with his
whip in his hand, while
the dog watched him through the wheel.
"Come here,"
said Fearenside--"You'd better."
Hall had stood gaping.
"He wuz bit," said Hall. "I'd better go and
see to en," and he
trotted after the stranger. He met Mrs. Hall in
the passage.
"Carrier's darg," he said "bit en."
He went straight
upstairs, and the stranger's door being ajar, he
pushed it open and was
entering without any ceremony, being of a
naturally sympathetic
turn of mind.
The blind was down and
the room dim. He caught a glimpse of a most
singular thing, what
seemed a handless arm waving towards him, and
a face of three huge
indeterminate spots on white, very like the
face of a pale pansy.
Then he was struck violently in the chest,
hurled back, and the door
slammed in his face and locked. It was so
rapid that it gave him no
time to observe. A waving of indecipherable
shapes, a blow, and a
concussion. There he stood on the dark little
landing, wondering what
it might be that he had seen.
A couple of minutes
after, he rejoined the little group that had
formed outside the
"Coach and Horses." There was Fearenside telling
about it all over again
for the second time; there was Mrs. Hall
saying his dog didn't
have no business to bite her guests; there
was Huxter, the general
dealer from over the road, interrogative;
and Sandy Wadgers from
the forge, judicial; besides women and
children, all of them
saying fatuities: "Wouldn't let en bite
_me_, I knows";
"'Tasn't right _have_ such dargs"; "Whad _'e_ bite
'n for, then?" and
so forth.
Mr. Hall, staring at them
from the steps and listening, found it
incredible that he had
seen anything so very remarkable happen
upstairs. Besides, his
vocabulary was altogether too limited to
express his impressions.
"He don't want no
help, he says," he said in answer to his wife's
inquiry. "We'd better
be a-takin' of his luggage in."
"He ought to have it
cauterised at once," said Mr. Huxter;
"especially if it's
at all inflamed."
"I'd shoot en,
that's what I'd do," said a lady in the group.
Suddenly the dog began
growling again.
"Come along,"
cried an angry voice in the doorway, and there stood
the muffled stranger with
his collar turned up, and his hat-brim
bent down. "The
sooner you get those things in the better I'll be
pleased." It is
stated by an anonymous bystander that his trousers
and gloves had been
changed.
"Was you hurt,
sir?" said Fearenside. "I'm rare sorry the darg--"
"Not a bit,"
said the stranger. "Never broke the skin. Hurry up
with those things."
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