He laughed, and put his hand to the locked door.  “Barred out of my own bedroom, by a flagrant absurdity!” he said.

He walked to the head of the staircase, turned, and stared at the locked doors.  “It’s fact,” he said.  He put his fingers to his slightly bruised neck.  “Undeniable fact!

“But—­”

He shook his head hopelessly, turned, and went downstairs.

He lit the dining-room lamp, got out a cigar, and began pacing the room, ejaculating.  Now and then he would argue with himself.

“Invisible!” he said.

“Is there such a thing as an invisible animal? ...  In the sea, yes.  Thousands—­millions.  All the larvae, all the little nauplii and tornarias, all the microscopic things, the jelly-fish.  In the sea there are more things invisible than visible!  I never thought of that before.  And in the ponds too!  All those little pond-life things—­specks of colourless translucent jelly!  But in air?  No!

“It can’t be.

“But after all—­why not?

“If a man was made of glass he would still be visible.”

His meditation became profound.  The bulk of three cigars had passed into the invisible or diffused as a white ash over the carpet before he spoke again.  Then it was merely an exclamation.  He turned aside, walked out of the room, and went into his little consulting-room and lit the gas there.  It was a little room, because Dr. Kemp did not live by practice, and in it were the day’s newspapers.  The morning’s paper lay carelessly opened and thrown aside.  He caught it up, turned it over, and read the account of a “Strange Story from Iping” that the mariner at Port Stowe had spelt over so painfully to Mr. Marvel.  Kemp read it swiftly.

“Wrapped up!” said Kemp.  “Disguised!  Hiding it!  ’No one seems to have been aware of his misfortune.’  What the devil is his game?”

He dropped the paper, and his eye went seeking.  “Ah!” he said, and caught up the St. James’ Gazette, lying folded up as it arrived.  “Now we shall get at the truth,” said Dr. Kemp.  He rent the paper open; a couple of columns confronted him.  “An Entire Village in Sussex goes Mad” was the heading.

“Good Heavens!” said Kemp, reading eagerly an incredulous account of the events in Iping, of the previous afternoon, that have already been described.  Over the leaf the report in the morning paper had been reprinted.

He re-read it.  “Ran through the streets striking right and left.  Jaffers insensible.  Mr. Huxter in great pain—­still unable to describe what he saw.  Painful humiliation—­vicar.  Woman ill with terror!  Windows smashed.  This extraordinary story probably a fabrication.  Too good not to print—­cum grano!”

He dropped the paper and stared blankly in front of him.  “Probably a fabrication!”

He caught up the paper again, and re-read the whole business.  “But when does the Tramp come in?  Why the deuce was he chasing a tramp?”