The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells Chapter 23 In Drury Lane Part Two

The Invisible Man 
by H.G. Wells  
Chapter 23  
In Drury Lane  
Part Two

"Are all very well for common people. But the point was, Kemp, that

I had to get out of that house in a disguise without his seeing me.

I couldn't think of any other way of doing it. And then I gagged

him with a Louis Quatorze vest and tied him up in a sheet."

"Tied him up in a sheet!"

"Made a sort of bag of it. It was rather a good idea to keep the

idiot scared and quiet, and a devilish hard thing to get out

of--head away from the string. My dear Kemp, it's no good your

sitting glaring as though I was a murderer. It had to be done. He

had his revolver. If once he saw me he would be able to describe

me--"

"But still," said Kemp, "in England--to-day. And the man was in

his own house, and you were--well, robbing."

"Robbing! Confound it! You'll call me a thief next! Surely, Kemp,

you're not fool enough to dance on the old strings. Can't you see

my position?"

"And his too," said Kemp.

The Invisible Man stood up sharply. "What do you mean to say?"

Kemp's face grew a trifle hard. He was about to speak and checked

himself. "I suppose, after all," he said with a sudden change of

manner, "the thing had to be done. You were in a fix. But still--"

"Of course I was in a fix--an infernal fix. And he made me wild

too--hunting me about the house, fooling about with his revolver,

locking and unlocking doors. He was simply exasperating. You don't

blame me, do you? You don't blame me?"

"I never blame anyone," said Kemp. "It's quite out of fashion. What

did you do next?"

"I was hungry. Downstairs I found a loaf and some rank cheese--more

than sufficient to satisfy my hunger. I took some brandy and

water, and then went up past my impromptu bag--he was lying quite

still--to the room containing the old clothes. This looked out

upon the street, two lace curtains brown with dirt guarding the

window. I went and peered out through their interstices. Outside

the day was bright--by contrast with the brown shadows of the

dismal house in which I found myself, dazzlingly bright. A brisk

traffic was going by, fruit carts, a hansom, a four-wheeler with a

pile of boxes, a fishmonger's cart. I turned with spots of colour

swimming before my eyes to the shadowy fixtures behind me. My

excitement was giving place to a clear apprehension of my position

again. The room was full of a faint scent of benzoline, used, I

suppose, in cleaning the garments.

"I began a systematic search of the place. I should judge the

hunchback had been alone in the house for some time. He was a

curious person. Everything that could possibly be of service to me

I collected in the clothes storeroom, and then I made a deliberate

selection. I found a handbag I thought a suitable possession, and

some powder, rouge, and sticking-plaster.

"I had thought of painting and powdering my face and all that

there was to show of me, in order to render myself visible, but

the disadvantage of this lay in the fact that I should require

turpentine and other appliances and a considerable amount of time

before I could vanish again. Finally I chose a mask of the better

type, slightly grotesque but not more so than many human beings,

dark glasses, greyish whiskers, and a wig. I could find no

underclothing, but that I could buy subsequently, and for the time I

swathed myself in calico dominoes and some white cashmere scarfs. I

could find no socks, but the hunchback's boots were rather a loose

fit and sufficed. In a desk in the shop were three sovereigns and

about thirty shillings' worth of silver, and in a locked cupboard I

burst in the inner room were eight pounds in gold. I could go forth

into the world again, equipped.

"Then came a curious hesitation. Was my appearance really

credible? I tried myself with a little bedroom looking-glass,

inspecting myself from every point of view to discover any

forgotten chink, but it all seemed sound. I was grotesque to the

theatrical pitch, a stage miser, but I was certainly not a physical

impossibility. Gathering confidence, I took my looking-glass down

into the shop, pulled down the shop blinds, and surveyed myself

from every point of view with the help of the cheval glass in the

corner.

"I spent some minutes screwing up my courage and then unlocked the

shop door and marched out into the street, leaving the little man

to get out of his sheet again when he liked. In five minutes a

dozen turnings intervened between me and the costumier's shop. No

one appeared to notice me very pointedly. My last difficulty seemed

overcome."

He stopped again.

"And you troubled no more about the hunchback?" said Kemp.

"No," said the Invisible Man. "Nor have I heard what became of him.

I suppose he untied himself or kicked himself out. The knots were

pretty tight."

He became silent and went to the window and stared out.

"What happened when you went out into the Strand?"

"Oh!--disillusionment again. I thought my troubles were over.

Practically I thought I had impunity to do whatever I chose,

everything--save to give away my secret. So I thought. Whatever I

did, whatever the consequences might be, was nothing to me. I had

merely to fling aside my garments and vanish. No person could hold

me. I could take my money where I found it. I decided to treat

myself to a sumptuous feast, and then put up at a good hotel, and

accumulate a new outfit of property. I felt amazingly confident;

it's not particularly pleasant recalling that I was an ass. I went

into a place and was already ordering lunch, when it occurred to me

that I could not eat unless I exposed my invisible face. I finished

ordering the lunch, told the man I should be back in ten minutes,

and went out exasperated. I don't know if you have ever been

disappointed in your appetite."

"Not quite so badly," said Kemp, "but I can imagine it."

"I could have smashed the silly devils. At last, faint with the

desire for tasteful food, I went into another place and demanded a

private room. 'I am disfigured,' I said. 'Badly.' They looked at

me curiously, but of course it was not their affair--and so at

last I got my lunch. It was not particularly well served, but it

sufficed; and when I had had it, I sat over a cigar, trying to plan

my line of action. And outside a snowstorm was beginning.

"The more I thought it over, Kemp, the more I realised what a

helpless absurdity an Invisible Man was--in a cold and dirty

climate and a crowded civilised city. Before I made this mad

experiment I had dreamt of a thousand advantages. That afternoon

it seemed all disappointment. I went over the heads of the things

a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible

to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they

are got. Ambition--what is the good of pride of place when you

cannot appear there? What is the good of the love of woman when

her name must needs be Delilah? I have no taste for politics, for

the blackguardisms of fame, for philanthropy, for sport. What was

I to do? And for this I had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed

and bandaged caricature of a man!"

He paused, and his attitude suggested a roving glance at the

window.

"But how did you get to Iping?" said Kemp, anxious to keep his

guest busy talking.

"I went there to work. I had one hope. It was a half idea! I have

it still. It is a full blown idea now. A way of getting back! Of

restoring what I have done. When I choose. When I have done all I

mean to do invisibly. And that is what I chiefly want to talk to

you about now."

"You went straight to Iping?"

"Yes. I had simply to get my three volumes of memoranda and my

cheque-book, my luggage and underclothing, order a quantity of

chemicals to work out this idea of mine--I will show you the

calculations as soon as I get my books--and then I started. Jove!

I remember the snowstorm now, and the accursed bother it was to

keep the snow from damping my pasteboard nose."

"At the end," said Kemp, "the day before yesterday, when they found

you out, you rather--to judge by the papers--"

"I did. Rather. Did I kill that fool of a constable?"

"No," said Kemp. "He's expected to recover."

"That's his luck, then. I clean lost my temper, the fools! Why

couldn't they leave me alone? And that grocer lout?"

"There are no deaths expected," said Kemp.

"I don't know about that tramp of mine," said the Invisible Man,

with an unpleasant laugh.

"By Heaven, Kemp, you don't know what rage _is_! ... To have worked

for years, to have planned and plotted, and then to get some

fumbling purblind idiot messing across your course! ... Every

conceivable sort of silly creature that has ever been created has

been sent to cross me.

"If I have much more of it, I shall go wild--I shall start

mowing 'em.

"As it is, they've made things a thousand times more difficult."

"No doubt it's exasperating," said Kemp, drily.