But Jaffers lay quite still, face upward and knees
bent, at the foot of the steps of the inn.
IN TRANSIT
The eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates
that Gibbons, the amateur naturalist of the district,
while lying out on the spacious open downs 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; and looking, beheld nothing. Yet
the voice was indisputable. It continued to swear
with that breadth 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.
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!”
