style="font-size:15px;"> “Nonsense! It’s just a trick.”
Trying to see in through the open door, the crowd formed itself into a straggling wedge.
“He stood for a moment, I heard the girl scream, and he turned. I saw her skirts, and he went after her. It didn’t take ten seconds. He came back with a knife in his hand. Not a moment ago. He went through that door. I tell you, he has no head! At all.”
The speaker stopped to step aside for a little procession that was marching very resolutely towards the house; first Mr. Hall, very red and determined, then Mr. Bobby Jaffers, the village constable, and then Mr. Wadgers. They had come to arrest the stranger.
People shouted.
“With the head or without any head, it doesn’t matter,” said Jaffers, “I will arrest him, in any case.”
Mr. Hall marched straight to the door of the parlour and flung it open.
“Constable,” he said, “do your duty.”
Jaffers marched in. Hall next, Wadgers last. They saw in the dim light the headless figure facing them, with a crust of bread in one gloved hand and a chunk of cheese in the other.
“That’s him!” said Hall.
“What the devil is this?” came an angry question from above the collar of the figure.
“You’re a rare man, indeed, mister,” said Mr. Jaffers. “But with the head or without any head, duty is duty!”
“Keep off!” said the figure, starting back.
Abruptly he whipped down the bread and cheese. Off came the stranger’s left glove and was slapped in Jaffers’ face. In another moment Jaffers had gripped him by the handless wrist and caught his invisible throat. They came down together.
“Get the feet,” said Jaffers.
Mr. Hall, endeavouring to act on instructions, received a kick in the ribs. Mr. Wadgers retreated towards the door, knife in hand, and so collided with Mr. Huxter and the carter coming to the rescue of law and order. At the same moment down came three or four bottles from the chiffonnier.
“I’ll surrender!” cried the stranger, and in another moment he stood up, a strange figure, headless and handless-for he had pulled off his gloves. “It’s no good,” he said.
It was a very strange thing to hear that voice coming as if out of empty space. Jaffers got up also and produced a pair of handcuffs. Then he stared.
“Darn it!” said Jaffers, “I can’t use them as I can see.”
“Why!” said Huxter, suddenly, “that’s not a man at all. It’s just empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar. I could put my arm-”
He extended his hand, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation.
“I wish you’d keep your fingers out of my eye,” said the aerial voice. “The fact is, I’m all here-head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but I’m invisible.”
The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon its unseen supports, stood up.
Several men had entered the room, so that it was crowded.
“Invisible, eh?” said Huxter. “Who ever heard of that?”
“It’s strange, perhaps, but it’s not a crime. Why is the policeman here?”
“Ah! that’s a different matter,” said Jaffers. “I got an order and it’s all correct. Invisibility is not a crime, but the burglary is. A house was broken into and money was taken.”
“Well?”
“And circumstances certainly point-”
“Nonsense!” said the Invisible Man.
“I hope so, sir; but I’ve got my instructions.”
“Well,” said the stranger, “I’ll come. I’ll come. But no handcuffs.”
“It’s the regular thing,” said Jaffers.
“No handcuffs,” stipulated the stranger.
“Pardon me,” said Jaffers.
Abruptly the figure sat down, and before any one could realise what was happening, the slippers, socks, and trousers had been kicked off under the table. Then he sprang up again and flung off his coat.
“Stop that!” said Jaffers, suddenly realising what was happening. He gripped at the waistcoat; it struggled, and the shirt slipped out of it.
“Hold him!” said Jaffers, loudly. “Once he gets the things off-”
“Hold him!” cried everyone. A white shirt was now all that was visible of the stranger.
The shirt-sleeve sent Hall backward, and in another moment the garment was lifted up and the shirt hit the man’s head.
“Hold him!” said everybody. “Shut the door! Don’t let him get out! I got something! Here he is!”
Sandy Wadgers got a frightful blow in the nose. He opened the door. The hitting continued. Jaffers was struck under the jaw, and, turning, caught at something that intervened between him and Huxter.
“I got him!” shouted Jaffers, wrestling with purple face and swelling veins against his unseen enemy.
Then Jaffers cried in a strangled voice, and his fingers relaxed.
There were excited cries of “Hold him!” “Invisible!” and so forth, and a young fellow caught something and fell over the constable’s prostrate body. Across the road a woman screamed as something pushed her; a dog, kicked apparently, yelped and ran howling. The Invisible Man ran away. People stood amazed and gesticulating, and then came panic. But Jaffers lay quite still, face upward and knees bent.
Chapter VIII
In Transit
The eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates that Gibbons, the amateur naturalist of the district, while lying on the hill without a soul within a couple of miles of him, as he thought, and almost dozing, heard close to him the sound as of a man coughing, sneezing, and then swearing savagely to himself. Gibbons looked out but saw nothing. Yet the voice was indisputable. It was the swearing of an educated man. It grew, diminished again, and died away in the distance. It lifted to a sneeze and ended. Gibbons had heard nothing of the morning’s events, but the phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical tranquillity vanished; he got up hastily, and hurried down the hill towards the village, as fast as he could go.
Chapter IX
Mr. Thomas Marvel
Mr. Thomas Marvel was a person of copious, flexible visage, with a cylindrical nose, a liquorish, ample, fluctuating mouth, and an eccentric beard. He wore a furry silk hat, and the frequent substitution of shoe-laces for buttons, marked a bachelor.
Mr. Thomas Marvel was sitting with his feet in a ditch by the roadside, about a mile and
