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The Invisible Man

By H.G. Wells

Chapter 3

The Thousand and One Bottles

Part Two

He then swore to himself, so Mr. Hall asserts.

Directly the first crate was, in accordance with his directions,

carried into the parlour, the stranger flung himself upon it with

extraordinary eagerness, and began to unpack it, scattering the

straw with an utter disregard of Mrs. Hall's carpet. And from it he

began to produce bottles--little fat bottles containing powders,

small and slender bottles containing coloured and white fluids,

fluted blue bottles labeled Poison, bottles with round bodies and

slender necks, large green-glass bottles, large white-glass bottles,

bottles with glass stoppers and frosted labels, bottles with fine

corks, bottles with bungs, bottles with wooden caps, wine bottles,

salad-oil bottles--putting them in rows on the chiffonnier, on the

mantel, on the table under the window, round the floor, on the

bookshelf--everywhere. The chemist's shop in Bramblehurst could not

boast half so many. Quite a sight it was. Crate after crate yielded

bottles, until all six were empty and the table high with straw; the

only things that came out of these crates besides the bottles were

a number of test-tubes and a carefully packed balance.

And directly the crates were unpacked, the stranger went to the

window and set to work, not troubling in the least about the litter

of straw, the fire which had gone out, the box of books outside,

nor for the trunks and other luggage that had gone upstairs.

When Mrs. Hall took his dinner in to him, he was already so

absorbed in his work, pouring little drops out of the bottles into

test-tubes, that he did not hear her until she had swept away the

bulk of the straw and put the tray on the table, with some little

emphasis perhaps, seeing the state that the floor was in. Then he

half turned his head and immediately turned it away again. But she

saw he had removed his glasses; they were beside him on the table,

and it seemed to her that his eye sockets were extraordinarily

hollow. He put on his spectacles again, and then turned and faced

her. She was about to complain of the straw on the floor when he

anticipated her.

"I wish you wouldn't come in without knocking," he said in the tone

of abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him.

"I knocked, but seemingly--"

"Perhaps you did. But in my investigations--my really very urgent

and necessary investigations--the slightest disturbance, the jar

of a door--I must ask you--"

"Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you're like that, you

know. Any time."

"A very good idea," said the stranger.

"This stror, sir, if I might make so bold as to remark--"

"Don't. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill." And he

mumbled at her--words suspiciously like curses.

He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle

in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite

alarmed. But she was a resolute woman. "In which case, I should

like to know, sir, what you consider--"

"A shilling--put down a shilling. Surely a shilling's enough?"

"So be it," said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginning

to spread it over the table. "If you're satisfied, of course--"

He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her.

All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall

testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a

concussion and a sound of bottles ringing together as though the

table had been hit, and the smash of a bottle flung violently down,

and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. Fearing "something was

the matter," she went to the door and listened, not caring to

knock.

"I can't go on," he was raving. "I _can't_ go on. Three hundred

thousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! Cheated! All

my life it may take me! ... Patience! Patience indeed! ... Fool!

fool!"

There was a noise of hobnails on the bricks in the bar, and Mrs.

Hall had very reluctantly to leave the rest of his soliloquy.

When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faint

crepitation of his chair and the occasional clink of a bottle.

It was all over; the stranger had resumed work.

When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the

room under the concave mirror, and a golden stain that had been

carelessly wiped. She called attention to it.

"Put it down in the bill," snapped her visitor. "For God's sake

don't worry me. If there's damage done, put it down in the bill,"

and he went on ticking a list in the exercise book before him.

"I'll tell you something," said Fearenside, mysteriously. It was

late in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop of

Iping Hanger.

"Well?" said Teddy Henfrey.

"This chap you're speaking of, what my dog bit. Well--he's black.

Leastways, his legs are. I seed through the tear of his trousers

and the tear of his glove. You'd have expected a sort of pinky to

show, wouldn't you? Well--there wasn't none. Just blackness. I

tell you, he's as black as my hat."

"My sakes!" said Henfrey. "It's a rummy case altogether. Why, his

nose is as pink as paint!"

"That's true," said Fearenside. "I knows that. And I tell 'ee what

I'm thinking. That marn's a piebald, Teddy. Black here and white

there--in patches. And he's ashamed of it. He's a kind of half-breed,

and the colour's come off patchy instead of mixing. I've heard of

such things before. And it's the common way with horses, as any one

can see."