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10 - The Invisible Man - H G Wells · Classic Science Fiction Books

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Speaker 1: Chapter twenty one, in Oxford Street. In going downstairs the
0:06
Speaker 1: first time, I found an unexpected difficulty because I could
0:10
Speaker 1: not see my feet. Indeed, I stumbled twice, and there
0:13
Speaker 1: was an unaccustomed clumsiness in gripping the bolt. By not
0:17
Speaker 1: looking down. However, I managed to walk on the level
0:19
Speaker 1: possibly well. My mood, I say, was one of exultation.
0:25
Speaker 1: I felt as a seeing man might do with padded
0:27
Speaker 1: feet and noiseless clothes in a city of the blind.
0:31
Speaker 1: I experienced a wild impulse to jest, to startle people,
0:35
Speaker 1: to clap men on the back, fling people's hats astray,
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Speaker 1: and generally revel in my extraordinary advantage. But hardly had
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Speaker 1: I emerged upon Great Portland Street, however, my lodging was
0:46
Speaker 1: close to the Big Draper's shop there when I heard
0:48
Speaker 1: a clashing concussion and was hit violently behind and turning
0:52
Speaker 1: saw a man carrying a basket of soda water siphons
0:55
Speaker 1: and looking in amazement at his burden. Although the blow
0:58
Speaker 1: had really hurt me, I found something so irresistible in
1:01
Speaker 1: his astonishment that I laughed aloud. The devil's in the basket,
1:06
Speaker 1: I said, and suddenly twisted it out of his hand.
1:09
Speaker 1: He let go in continently, and I swung the whole
1:11
Speaker 1: weight into the air. But a fool of a cabman
1:15
Speaker 1: standing outside a public house made a sudden rush for this,
1:18
Speaker 1: and his extending fingers took me with excruciating violence under
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Speaker 1: the ear. I let the hole down with a smash
1:24
Speaker 1: on the cabman, and then with shouts and the clatter
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Speaker 1: of feet about me, people coming out of shops, vehicles
1:29
Speaker 1: pulling up. I realized what I had done for myself,
1:32
Speaker 1: and cursing my folly, backed against the shop window and
1:35
Speaker 1: prepared dodge out of the confusion. In a moment, I
1:38
Speaker 1: should be wedged into a crowd, and inevitably discovered. I
1:43
Speaker 1: pushed by a butcher boy, who luckily did not turn
1:45
Speaker 1: to see the nothingness that shoved him aside, and dodged
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Speaker 1: behind the cabman's four wheeler. I do not know how
1:51
Speaker 1: they settled the business. I hurried straight across the road,
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Speaker 1: which was happily clear and hardly heeding, which when I
1:57
Speaker 1: went in the fright of detection the incident had given
1:59
Speaker 1: me plunged into the afternoon throng of Oxford Street. I
2:04
Speaker 1: tried to get into the stream of people but they
2:06
Speaker 1: were too thick for me, and in a moment my
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Speaker 1: heels were being trodden upon. I took to the gutter,
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Speaker 1: the roughness of which I found painful to my feet,
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Speaker 1: and forthwith the shaft of a crawling hansom dug me
2:17
Speaker 1: forcibly under the shoulder blade, reminding me that I was
2:20
Speaker 1: already bruised severely. I staggered out of the way of
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Speaker 1: the cab, avoided a perambulator by a convulsive movement, and
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Speaker 1: found myself behind the hansom. A happy thought saved me,
2:31
Speaker 1: and as this drove slowly along, I followed in its
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Speaker 1: immediate wake, trembling and astonished at the turn of my adventure,
2:38
Speaker 1: and not only trembling, but shivering. It was a bright
2:41
Speaker 1: day in January, and I was stark naked, and the
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Speaker 1: thin slime of mud that covered the road was freezing. Foolish,
2:48
Speaker 1: as it seems to me now, I had not reckoned that.
2:50
Speaker 1: Transparent or not, I was still amenable to the weather
2:53
Speaker 1: and all its consequences. Then suddenly a bright idea came
2:58
Speaker 1: into my head. I ran round and got into the cab,
3:01
Speaker 1: and so shivering, scared and sniffing with the first intimations
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Speaker 1: of a cold, and with the bruises in the small
3:07
Speaker 1: of my back growing upon my attention, I drove slowly
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Speaker 1: along Oxford Street and past Tottenham Court Road. My mood
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Speaker 1: was as different from that in which I had sallied
3:16
Speaker 1: forth ten minutes ago as it is possible to imagine
3:19
Speaker 1: this invisibility. Indeed, the one thought that possessed me was
3:23
Speaker 1: how was I to get out of the scrape I
3:25
Speaker 1: was in. We crawled past Moody's, and there a tall
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Speaker 1: woman with five or six yellow labeled books hailed my cab,
3:32
Speaker 1: and I sprang out just in time to escape her,
3:35
Speaker 1: shaving a railway van narrowly in my flight. I made
3:39
Speaker 1: off up the roadway to Bloomsbery Square, intending to strike
3:41
Speaker 1: north past the museum and so get into the quiet district.
3:45
Speaker 1: I was now cruelly chilled, and the strangeness of my
3:48
Speaker 1: situation so unnerved me that I whimpered. As I ran.
3:51
Speaker 1: At the northward corner of the square, a little white
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Speaker 1: dog ran out of the Pharmaceutical Society's offices and incontinently
3:58
Speaker 1: made for me nose down. I had never realized it before,
4:03
Speaker 1: but the nose is to the mind of a dog
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Speaker 1: what the eye is to the mind of a seeing man.
4:08
Speaker 1: Dogs perceived the scent of a man moving as men
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Speaker 1: perceive his vision. This brute began barking and leaping, showing,
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Speaker 1: as it seemed to me, only too plainly, that he
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Speaker 1: was aware of me. I crossed Great Russell Street, glancing
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Speaker 1: over my shoulder as I did so, and went somewhere
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Speaker 1: along Montague Street before I realized what I was running towards.
4:26
Speaker 1: Then I became aware of a blair of music, and
4:29
Speaker 1: looking along the street, saw a number of people advancing
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Speaker 1: out of Russell Square, red shirts and the banner of
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Speaker 1: the Salvation Army to the fore. Such a crowd chanting
4:38
Speaker 1: in the roadway and scoffing on the pavement, I could
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Speaker 1: not hope to penetrate, and dreading to go back and
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Speaker 1: further from home again, and deciding on the spur of
4:45
Speaker 1: the moment, I ran up the white steps of a
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Speaker 1: house facing the museum railings, and stood there until the
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Speaker 1: crowd should have passed. Happily, the dog stopped at the
4:54
Speaker 1: noise of the band, too, hesitated, and turned tail, running
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Speaker 1: back to Bloomsbury Square again. On came the band, bawling
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Speaker 1: with unconscious irony. Some hymn about when shall we see
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Speaker 1: his face? And it seemed an interminable time to me
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Speaker 1: before the tide of the crowd washed along the pavement.
5:12
Speaker 1: But by me third, third thud came the drum with
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Speaker 1: a vibrating resonance, And for the moment I did not
5:18
Speaker 1: notice two urchins stopping at the railings by me, see
5:22
Speaker 1: em said one, see what, said the other? Why them footmarks? Bear?
5:28
Speaker 1: Look what he makes in mud. I looked down and
5:32
Speaker 1: saw the youngsters had stopped and were gaping at the
5:34
Speaker 1: muddy footmarks I had left behind me up the newly
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Speaker 1: whitened steps. The passing people elbowed and jostled them, but
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Speaker 1: their confounded intelligence was arrested. Third, third, third, When third
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Speaker 1: shall we see? Third? His face? Third thud? There's a
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Speaker 1: bare footman gone up them steps or I don't know, nahing,
5:51
Speaker 1: said one, And he ain't never come down again, and
5:54
Speaker 1: his foot was a bleedin'. The thick of the crowd
5:58
Speaker 1: had already passed. Look here, quoth one of the younger
6:01
Speaker 1: of the detectives, with a sharpness of surprise in his voice,
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Speaker 1: and pointed straight to my feet. I looked down and
6:08
Speaker 1: saw at once the dim suggestion of their outlines sketched
6:10
Speaker 1: in splashes of mud. For a moment, I was paralyzed.
6:15
Speaker 1: Why that's rum, said the elder dashed rum. It's like
6:18
Speaker 1: the gast of a foot, ain't it. He hesitated and
6:22
Speaker 1: advanced with outstretched hand. A man pulled up short to
6:25
Speaker 1: see what he was catching, and then a girl. In
6:28
Speaker 1: another moment, he would have touched me. Then I saw
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Speaker 1: what to do. I made a step. The boy started
6:34
Speaker 1: back with an exclamation, and with a rapid movement, I
6:36
Speaker 1: swung myself over into the portico of the next house.
6:40
Speaker 1: But the smaller boy was sharp eyed enough to follow
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Speaker 1: the movement, and before I was well down the steps
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Speaker 1: and upon the pavement, he had recovered from his momentary
6:47
Speaker 1: astonishment and was shouting out that the feet had gone
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Speaker 1: over the wall. They rushed round and saw my new
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Speaker 1: footmarks flash into being upon the lower step and upon
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Speaker 1: the pavement. What's up, asked someone Fate look feet running.
7:02
Speaker 1: Everybody in the road except my three pursuers, was pouring
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Speaker 1: along after the Salvation army, and this blow not only
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Speaker 1: impeded me but them. There was an eddy of surprise
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Speaker 1: and interrogation at the cost of bowling over one young fellow.
7:15
Speaker 1: I got through, and in another moment I was rushing
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Speaker 1: headlong round the circuit of Russell Square, with six or
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Speaker 1: seven astonished people following my footmarks. There was no time
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Speaker 1: for explanations, or else the whole host would have been
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Speaker 1: after me. Twice I doubled round corners, thrice, I crossed
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Speaker 1: the road and came back upon my tracks. And then,
7:33
Speaker 1: as my feet grew hot and dry, the damp impressions
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Speaker 1: began to fade. At last I had her breathing space,
7:39
Speaker 1: and rubbed my feet clean with my hands, and so
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Speaker 1: got away altogether. The last I saw of the chase
7:45
Speaker 1: was a little group of a dozen people, perhaps studying
7:47
Speaker 1: with infinite perplexity a slowly drying footprint that had resulted
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Speaker 1: from a puddle in Tavistock Square, a footprint as isolated
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Speaker 1: and incomprehensible to them a scrusoe's solitary discovery. This running
8:01
Speaker 1: warmed me to a certain extent, and I went on
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Speaker 1: with a better courage through the maze of less frequented
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Speaker 1: roads that runs hereabouts. My back had now become very
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Speaker 1: stiff and sore. My tonsils were painful from the cabman's fingers,
8:14
Speaker 1: and the skin of my neck had been scratched by
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Speaker 1: his nails. My feet hurt exceedingly, and I was lame
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Speaker 1: from a little cut on one foot. I saw in
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Speaker 1: time a blind man approaching me, and fled, limping, for
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Speaker 1: I feeled his subtle intuitions. Once or twice, accidental collisions occurred,
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Speaker 1: and I left people amazed with unaccountable curses ringing in
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Speaker 1: their ears. And then something silent and quiet against my face,
8:37
Speaker 1: and across the square fell a thin veil of slowly
8:40
Speaker 1: falling flakes of snow. I had caught a cold, and
8:43
Speaker 1: do as I would, I could not avoid an occasional sneeze,
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Speaker 1: and every dog that came in sight, with its pointed
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Speaker 1: nose and curious sniffing, was a terror to me. Then
8:53
Speaker 1: came men and boys, running, first one and then others,
8:56
Speaker 1: and shouting as they ran. It was a fire. They
8:59
Speaker 1: ran in the direction of my lodging, and looking back
9:01
Speaker 1: down a street, I saw a mass of black smoke
9:03
Speaker 1: streaming up above roofs and telephone wires. It was my lodging,
9:07
Speaker 1: burning my clothes, my apparatus, all my resources, indeed, except
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Speaker 1: my check book and the three volumes of memoranda that
9:14
Speaker 1: awaited me in Great Portland Street. Were there burning? I
9:18
Speaker 1: had burnt my boats. If ever a man did, the
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Speaker 1: place was blazing. The invisible man paused and thought, Kemp
9:27
Speaker 1: glanced nervously out of the window. Yes, he said, go
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Speaker 1: on Chapter twenty two in the Emporium. So last January,
9:41
Speaker 1: with the beginning of a snowstorm in the air about me,
9:43
Speaker 1: and if it settled on me it would betray me. Weary, cold, painful,
9:48
Speaker 1: inexpressibly wretched and still, but half convinced of my invisible quality,
9:54
Speaker 1: I began this new life to which I am committed.
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Speaker 1: I had no refuge, no appliances, No human being being
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Speaker 1: in the world in whom I could confide to have
10:02
Speaker 1: told my secret would have given me away, made a
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Speaker 1: mere show and rarity of me. Nevertheless, I was half
10:08
Speaker 1: minded to accost some passer by and throw myself upon
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Speaker 1: his mercy. But I knew too clearly the terror and
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Speaker 1: brutal cruelty my advances would evoke. I made no plans
10:18
Speaker 1: in the street. My sole object was to get shelter
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Speaker 1: from the snow, to get myself covered and warm. Then
10:25
Speaker 1: I might hope to plan, But even to me an
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Speaker 1: invisible man, the rows of London houses stood latched, barred
10:32
Speaker 1: and bolted impregnably. Only one thing could I see clearly
10:37
Speaker 1: before me, the cold, exposure and misery of the snow
10:41
Speaker 1: storm and night. And then I had a brilliant idea.
10:45
Speaker 1: I turned down one of the roads leading from Gower
10:47
Speaker 1: Street to Tottenham Court Road and found myself outside Omium's,
10:51
Speaker 1: a big establishment where everything is to be bought, you
10:54
Speaker 1: know the place, meat, grocery, linen, furniture, clothing, oil, paintings,
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Speaker 1: even a huge meandering colation of shops rather than a shop.
11:03
Speaker 1: I thought I should find the doors open, but they
11:05
Speaker 1: were closed. And as I stood in the wide entrance,
11:07
Speaker 1: a carriage stopped outside, and a man in uniform you know,
11:10
Speaker 1: the kind of personage with omnium on his cap, flung
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Speaker 1: open the door. I contrived to enter, and walking down
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Speaker 1: the shop it was a department where they were selling
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Speaker 1: ribbons and gloves and stockings and that kind of thing.
11:23
Speaker 1: Came to a more spacious region, diverted to picnic baskets
11:25
Speaker 1: and wicker furniture. I did not feel safe there, however,
11:30
Speaker 1: people were going to and fro, and I prowled restlessly
11:33
Speaker 1: until I came about a huge section in an upper
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Speaker 1: floor containing multitudes of bedsteads, and over these I clambered
11:39
Speaker 1: and found a resting place at last, among a huge
11:41
Speaker 1: pile of folded flock mattresses. The place was already lit
11:45
Speaker 1: up and agreeably warm, and I decided to remain where
11:48
Speaker 1: I was, keeping a cautious eye on the two or
11:50
Speaker 1: three sets of shopmen and customers who were meriandering through
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Speaker 1: the place until closing time came. Then I should be able,
11:57
Speaker 1: I thought, to rob the place for food and clothing,
12:00
Speaker 1: and disguised prowled through it and examine its resources, perhaps
12:03
Speaker 1: sleep on some of the bedding. That seemed an acceptable plan.
12:07
Speaker 1: My idea was to procure clothing to make myself a
12:10
Speaker 1: muffled but acceptable figure, to get money, and then to
12:13
Speaker 1: recover my books and parcels where they awaited me, take
12:15
Speaker 1: a lodging somewhere, and elaborate plans for the complete realization
12:19
Speaker 1: of the advantages my invisibility gave me, as I still
12:21
Speaker 1: imagined over my fellow men. Closing time arrived quickly enough.
12:29
Speaker 1: It could not have been more than an hour after
12:31
Speaker 1: I took up my position on the mattress before I
12:33
Speaker 1: noticed the blinds of the windows being drawn and customers
12:36
Speaker 1: being marched doorward, and then a number of brisk young
12:39
Speaker 1: men began with remarkable alacrity to tidy up the goods
12:42
Speaker 1: that remained disturbed. I left my lair as the crowds diminished,
12:46
Speaker 1: and prowled cautiously out into the less desolate parts of
12:49
Speaker 1: the shop. I was really surprised to observe how rapidly
12:52
Speaker 1: the young men and women whipped away the goods displayed
12:55
Speaker 1: for sale during the day. All the boxes of goods,
12:58
Speaker 1: the hanging fabrics, the festoons of lace, the boxes of
13:01
Speaker 1: sweets in the grocery section, the displays of this and
13:03
Speaker 1: that were being whipped down, folded up, slapped into tidy receptacles,
13:08
Speaker 1: and everything that could not be taken down and put
13:10
Speaker 1: away had sheets of some coarse stuff like sacking flung
13:13
Speaker 1: over them. Finally, all the chairs were turned up on
13:16
Speaker 1: the counters, leaving the floor clear. Directly each of these
13:20
Speaker 1: young people had done, he or she made promptly for
13:22
Speaker 1: the door, with such an expression of animation as I
13:24
Speaker 1: have rarely observed in a shop assistant before. Then came
13:28
Speaker 1: a lot of youngsters scattering sawdust and carrying pails and brooms.
13:32
Speaker 1: I had dodged to get out of the way, and
13:34
Speaker 1: as it was, my ankle got stung with the sawdust.
13:37
Speaker 1: For some time, wandering through the swathed and darkened apartments,
13:40
Speaker 1: I could hear the brooms at work, and at last,
13:43
Speaker 1: a good hour or more after the shop had been closed,
13:45
Speaker 1: came a noise of locking doors. Silence came upon the place,
13:49
Speaker 1: and I find myself wandering through the vast and intricate shops,
13:53
Speaker 1: galleries showrooms of the place alone. It was very still.
13:57
Speaker 1: In one place I remember passing near one of the
13:59
Speaker 1: Tottenham caught road entrances and listening to the tapping of
14:02
Speaker 1: boot heels of the passers by. My first visit was
14:06
Speaker 1: to the place where I had seen stockings and gloves
14:08
Speaker 1: for sale. It was dark and I had the devil
14:11
Speaker 1: of a hunt after matches, which I found at last
14:14
Speaker 1: in the drawer of the little cash desk. Then I
14:16
Speaker 1: had to get a candle. I had to tear down
14:18
Speaker 1: wrappings and ransack a number of boxes and drawers, but
14:21
Speaker 1: at last I managed to turn out what I sought.
14:24
Speaker 1: The box label called them Lamb's wool pants and Lamb's
14:27
Speaker 1: wool vests. Then socks, a thick comforter, and then I
14:31
Speaker 1: went to the clothing place and got trousers, a lounge jacket,
14:33
Speaker 1: an overcoat, and a slouch hat, a clerical sort of
14:36
Speaker 1: hat with the brim turned down. I began to feel
14:39
Speaker 1: a human being again, and my next thought was food.
14:44
Speaker 1: Upstairs was a refreshment department, and there I got cold meat.
14:47
Speaker 1: There was coffee still in the urn, and I lit
14:49
Speaker 1: the gas and warmed it up again, and altogether I
14:52
Speaker 1: did not do badly. Afterwards, prowling through the place in
14:55
Speaker 1: search of blankets, I had to put up at last
14:57
Speaker 1: with a heap of down quilts. I came up on
15:00
Speaker 1: a grocery section with a lot of chocolate and candied
15:02
Speaker 1: fruits more than was good for me, indeed, and some
15:05
Speaker 1: white burgundy. And near that was a toy department, and
15:08
Speaker 1: I had a brilliant idea. I found some artificial noses,
15:11
Speaker 1: dummy noses, you know, And I thought of dark spectacles,
15:15
Speaker 1: but omniums had no optical department. My nose had been
15:19
Speaker 1: a difficulty. Indeed, I had thought of paint, but the
15:22
Speaker 1: discovery set my mind running on wigs and masks and
15:24
Speaker 1: the like. Finally, I went asleep in a heap of
15:27
Speaker 1: down quilts, very warm, and comfortable. My last thoughts before
15:32
Speaker 1: sleeping were the most agreeable I had had since the change.
15:35
Speaker 1: I was in a state of physical serenity, and that
15:37
Speaker 1: was reflected in my mind. I thought that I should
15:40
Speaker 1: be able to slip out unobserved in the morning, with
15:42
Speaker 1: my clothes upon me, muffling my face with a white
15:45
Speaker 1: wrapper I had taken, purchased with the money I had taken,
15:47
Speaker 1: spectacles and so forth, and so complete my disguise. I
15:51
Speaker 1: lapsed into disorderly dreams of all the fantastic things that
15:54
Speaker 1: had happened during the last few days. I saw the
15:57
Speaker 1: ugly little jew of a landlord vciperating in his rooms.
16:00
Speaker 1: I saw his two sons marveling, and the wrinkled old
16:02
Speaker 1: woman's gnarled face as she asked for her cat. I
16:05
Speaker 1: experienced again the strange sensation of seeing the cloth disappear,
16:09
Speaker 1: And so I came round the windy hillside, and the
16:11
Speaker 1: sniffing old clergyman mumbling earth to earth, ashes to ashes,
16:15
Speaker 1: dust to dust. At my father's open grave, you, also
16:19
Speaker 1: said a voice, and suddenly I was being forced towards
16:22
Speaker 1: the grave. I struggled, shouted, appealed to the mourners, but
16:26
Speaker 1: They continued stonily following the service. The old clergyman too,
16:29
Speaker 1: never faltering, droning and sniffling through the ritual. I realized
16:33
Speaker 1: I was invisible and inaudible, that overwhelming forces had their
16:37
Speaker 1: grip on me. I struggled in vain. I was forced
16:40
Speaker 1: over the brink. The coffin rang hollow as I fell
16:43
Speaker 1: upon it, and the gravel came flying after me in spadefuls.
16:47
Speaker 1: Nobody heeded me, nobody's aware of me. I made convulsive
16:51
Speaker 1: struggles and awoke. The pale London dawn had come. The
16:56
Speaker 1: place was full of a chilly gray light that filtered
16:58
Speaker 1: around the edges of the window blinds. I sat up,
17:01
Speaker 1: and for a time I could not think where this
17:03
Speaker 1: ample apartment, with its counters, its piles of rolled stuff,
17:06
Speaker 1: its help of quilts and cushions, its iron pillars, might be. Then,
17:10
Speaker 1: as recollection came back to me, I heard voices in conversation. Then,
17:14
Speaker 1: far down the place, in the brighter light of some
17:16
Speaker 1: department which had already raised its blinds, I saw two
17:19
Speaker 1: men approaching. I scrambled to my feet, looking about me
17:22
Speaker 1: for some way of escape, and even as I did so,
17:24
Speaker 1: the sound of my movement made them aware of me.
17:28
Speaker 1: I suppose they saw merely a figure moving quietly and
17:30
Speaker 1: quickly away. Who's that? Cried one? And stop there, cried
17:34
Speaker 1: the other. I dashed around a corner and came full
17:36
Speaker 1: tilt a face's figure mindew on a lanky lad of fifteen.
17:41
Speaker 1: He yelled, and I bowled him over, rushed past him,
17:43
Speaker 1: turned another corner, and by happy inspiration, threw myself behind
17:47
Speaker 1: a counter. In another moment, feet went running past, and
17:50
Speaker 1: I heard voices shouting, all hands to the doors, asking
17:53
Speaker 1: what was up, and giving one another advice how to
17:56
Speaker 1: catch me lying on the ground. I felt scared out
17:59
Speaker 1: of my wits, But odd as it may seem, it
18:02
Speaker 1: did not occur to me at that moment to take
18:04
Speaker 1: off my clothes as I should have done. I had
18:06
Speaker 1: made up my mind I suppose to get away in them,
18:08
Speaker 1: and that ruled me. And then down the vista of
18:11
Speaker 1: the counters came a bawling of here he is. I
18:14
Speaker 1: sprang to my feet, whipped a chair off the counter
18:16
Speaker 1: and sent it whirling at the fool who had shouted, turned,
18:20
Speaker 1: came into another round a corner, sent him spinning, and
18:22
Speaker 1: rushed up the stairs. He kept his footing, gave a
18:25
Speaker 1: view Halloo, and came up the staircase hot after me.
18:29
Speaker 1: Up the staircase were piled a multitude of those bright
18:32
Speaker 1: colored pot things. What are they? Art pots, suggested Kemp.
18:36
Speaker 1: That's it art pots. Well. I turned at the top
18:38
Speaker 1: step and swung round, plucked one out of a pile,
18:41
Speaker 1: and smashed it on his silly head. As he came
18:42
Speaker 1: at me. The whole pile of pots went headlong, and
18:45
Speaker 1: I heard shouting and footsteps running from all parts. I
18:48
Speaker 1: made a mad rush for the refreshment place, and there
18:51
Speaker 1: was a man in white, like a man cook, who
18:53
Speaker 1: took up the chase. I made one last desperate turn
18:56
Speaker 1: and found myself among lamps and iron mungery. I went
18:59
Speaker 1: behind the counter of this and waited for my cook,
19:01
Speaker 1: and as he bolted in at the head of the chase,
19:03
Speaker 1: I doubled him up with a lamp. Down he went,
19:06
Speaker 1: and I crouched down behind the counter and began whipping
19:08
Speaker 1: off my clothes as fast as I could. Coat, jacket, trousers,
19:11
Speaker 1: shoes were all right, but a lamb's wool vest fits
19:14
Speaker 1: a man like a skin. I heard more men coming.
19:17
Speaker 1: My cook was lying quiet on the other side of
19:19
Speaker 1: the counter, stunned or scared speechless, and I had to
19:22
Speaker 1: make another dash for it, like a rabbit hunted out
19:24
Speaker 1: of a woodpile. This way, policeman, I heard someone shouting,
19:28
Speaker 1: and I found myself in my bedsteads storeroom again, and
19:31
Speaker 1: at the end of a wilderness of wardrobes. I rushed
19:34
Speaker 1: among them, went flat, got rid of my vest after
19:36
Speaker 1: infinite wriggling, and stood a free man again, panting and scared.
19:41
Speaker 1: As the policeman and three of the shopmen came round
19:43
Speaker 1: the corner, they made a rush for the vest and
19:45
Speaker 1: pants and collared the trousers. He's dropping his plunder, said
19:49
Speaker 1: one of the young men. He must be somewhere here,
19:52
Speaker 1: But they did not find me. All the same. I
19:56
Speaker 1: stood watching them hunt for me for a time and
19:58
Speaker 1: cursing my ill luck and losing the clothes. Then I
20:01
Speaker 1: went into the refreshment room, drank a little milk I
20:04
Speaker 1: found there, and sat down by the fire to consider
20:06
Speaker 1: my position. In a while, two assistants came in and
20:11
Speaker 1: began to talk over the business, very excitedly, and like
20:14
Speaker 1: the fools they were, I heard a magnified account of
20:18
Speaker 1: my depredations and other speculations as to my whereabouts. Then
20:22
Speaker 1: I fell to scheming again. The insurmountable difficulty of the place,
20:26
Speaker 1: especially now it was alarmed, was to get any plunder
20:28
Speaker 1: out of it. I went down into the warehouse to
20:31
Speaker 1: see if there was any chance of packing and addressing
20:33
Speaker 1: a parcel, but I could not understand the system of checking.
20:37
Speaker 1: About eleven o'clock, the snow having thawed as it fell,
20:40
Speaker 1: and the day being finer and a little warmer than
20:42
Speaker 1: the previous one, I decided that the emporium was hopeless
20:46
Speaker 1: and went out again, exasperated my want of success, with
20:49
Speaker 1: only the vaguest plans of action in my mind. End
20:54
Speaker 1: of Chapter twenty two.