The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells Read Free Book Online Page B

and variety that distinguishes
the swearing of a cultivated man. It grew to a climax, diminished
again, and died away in the distance, going as it seemed to him in
the direction of Adderdean. It lifted to a spasmodic sneeze and
ended. Gibbons had heard nothing of the morning's occurrences, but
the phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical
tranquillity vanished; he got up hastily, and hurried down the
steepness of the hill towards the village, as fast as he could go.

Chapter IX - Mr. Thomas Marvel
*
    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