From the moment when the Invisible Man screamed with
rage and Mr. Bunting made his memorable flight up
the village, it became impossible to give a consecutive
account of affairs in Iping. Possibly the Invisible
Man’s original intention was simply to cover
Marvel’s retreat with the clothes and books.
But his temper, at no time very good, seems to have
gone completely at some chance blow, and forthwith
he set to smiting and overthrowing, for the mere satisfaction
of hurting.
You must figure the street full of running figures,
of doors slamming and fights for hiding-places.
You must figure the tumult suddenly striking on the
unstable equilibrium of old Fletcher’s planks
and two chairs—with cataclysmic results.
You must figure an appalled couple caught dismally
in a swing. And then the whole tumultuous rush
has passed and the Iping street with its gauds and
flags is deserted save for the still raging unseen,
and littered with cocoanuts, overthrown canvas screens,
and the scattered stock in trade of a sweetstuff stall.
Everywhere there is a sound of closing shutters and
shoving bolts, and the only visible humanity is an
occasional flitting eye under a raised eyebrow in the
corner of a window pane.
The Invisible Man amused himself for a little while
by breaking all the windows in the “Coach and
Horses,” and then he thrust a street lamp through
the parlour window of Mrs. Gribble. He it must
have been who cut the telegraph wire to Adderdean
just beyond Higgins’ cottage on the Adderdean
road. And after that, as his peculiar qualities
allowed, he passed out of human perceptions altogether,
and he was neither heard, seen, nor felt in Iping any
more. He vanished absolutely.
But it was the best part of two hours before any human
being ventured out again into the desolation of Iping
street.
CHAPTER XIII
MR. MARVEL DISCUSSES HIS RESIGNATION
When the dusk was gathering and Iping was just beginning
to peep timorously forth again upon the shattered
wreckage of its Bank Holiday, a short, thick-set man
in a shabby silk hat was marching painfully through
the twilight behind the beechwoods on the road to
Bramblehurst. He carried three books bound together
by some sort of ornamental elastic ligature, and a
bundle wrapped in a blue table-cloth. His rubicund
face expressed consternation and fatigue; he appeared
to be in a spasmodic sort of hurry. He was accompanied
by a voice other than his own, and ever and again he
winced under the touch of unseen hands.
“If you give me the slip again,” said
the Voice, “if you attempt to give me the slip
again—”
“Lord!” said Mr. Marvel. “That
shoulder’s a mass of bruises as it is.”
“On my honour,” said the Voice, “I
will kill you.”
“I didn’t try to give you the slip,”
said Marvel, in a voice that was not far remote from
tears. “I swear I didn’t. I didn’t
know the blessed turning, that was all! How the
devil was I to know the blessed turning? As it
is, I’ve been knocked about—”
