“Why not?” said Kemp.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s very probably been killed,” said the Invisible Man.  “It was alive four days after, I know, and down a grating in Great Titchfield Street; because I saw a crowd round the place, trying to see whence the miaowing came.”

He was silent for the best part of a minute.  Then he resumed abruptly: 

“I remember that morning before the change very vividly.  I must have gone up Great Portland Street.  I remember the barracks in Albany Street, and the horse soldiers coming out, and at last I found the summit of Primrose Hill.  It was a sunny day in January—­one of those sunny, frosty days that came before the snow this year.  My weary brain tried to formulate the position, to plot out a plan of action.

“I was surprised to find, now that my prize was within my grasp, how inconclusive its attainment seemed.  As a matter of fact I was worked out; the intense stress of nearly four years’ continuous work left me incapable of any strength of feeling.  I was apathetic, and I tried in vain to recover the enthusiasm of my first inquiries, the passion of discovery that had enabled me to compass even the downfall of my father’s grey hairs.  Nothing seemed to matter.  I saw pretty clearly this was a transient mood, due to overwork and want of sleep, and that either by drugs or rest it would be possible to recover my energies.

“All I could think clearly was that the thing had to be carried through; the fixed idea still ruled me.  And soon, for the money I had was almost exhausted.  I looked about me at the hillside, with children playing and girls watching them, and tried to think of all the fantastic advantages an invisible man would have in the world.  After a time I crawled home, took some food and a strong dose of strychnine, and went to sleep in my clothes on my unmade bed.  Strychnine is a grand tonic, Kemp, to take the flabbiness out of a man.”

“It’s the devil,” said Kemp.  “It’s the palaeolithic in a bottle.”

“I awoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable.  You know?”

“I know the stuff.”

“And there was someone rapping at the door.  It was my landlord with threats and inquiries, an old Polish Jew in a long grey coat and greasy slippers.  I had been tormenting a cat in the night, he was sure—­the old woman’s tongue had been busy.  He insisted on knowing all about it.  The laws in this country against vivisection were very severe—­he might be liable.  I denied the cat.  Then the vibration of the little gas engine could be felt all over the house, he said.  That was true, certainly.  He edged round me into the room, peering about over his German-silver spectacles, and a sudden dread came into my mind that he might carry away something of my secret.  I tried to keep between him and the concentrating apparatus I had arranged, and that only made him more curious.  What was I doing?  Why was I always alone and secretive?  Was it legal?