_ 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 towards Adderdean, about a mile and a half
out of Iping. His feet, save for socks of irregular open-work, 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 shoes, 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 shoes 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 country, try as I would, but _them_. Look at 'em!
And a good country for boots, too, in a general way. But it's just
my promiscuous luck. I've got my boots in this country ten years or
more. And then they treat you like this."
"It's a beast of a country," 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 was irradiated by the dawn of a great amazement.
"Where _are_ yer?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel over his shoulder and
coming on all fours. He saw a stretch of empty downs with the wind
swaying the 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 yer _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. Whizz 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. Whizz
it came, and ricochetted 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 missile. "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."
"Anyone 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 fingers 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 half 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 fairly 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 tizzy. 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." _