The Invisible Man

"I've worn worse—in fact, I've worn none. But none so owdacious ugly—[5] 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[6] sees such a thundering[7] lot of his boots. And if you'll believe me, I've raised nothing in the whole blessed county, try as I would, but them. Look at 'em! And a good county for boots, too,[8] in a general way. But it's just my promiscuous luck. I've got my boots in this county ten years or more. And then they treat you like this."

"It's a beast of a county," said the Voice, "and pigs for people."

"Ain't it?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Lord! But them boots! It beats it."[9]

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 turned his head over his shoulder to the left, and there also 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.[10] He saw a stretch of empty down, 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[11] 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,"[12] 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,"[13] 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!"[14] said Mr. Marvel.

"It's no good. It's fretting about them blarsted[15] 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,[16] 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 fall at his feet with almost invisible rapidity. He was too amazed to dodge. Whizz it came, and ricocheted 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,"[17] 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."[18]

The third flint fell.

"It's very simple," said the Voice. "I'm an invisible man."

"Tell us something I don't know,"[19] 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."