Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The First Men in the Moon Chapter 21 - Mr. Bedford at Littlestone

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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 21 - Mr. Bedford at Littlestone · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty one of the First Men in the Moon.
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  Speaker 1: This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. This recording is by Mark Smith
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  Speaker 1: of Simpsonville, South Carolina. The First Men in the Moon
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  Speaker 1: by H. G. Wells, Chapter twenty one. Mister Bedford at Littlestone.
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  Speaker 1: My line of flight was about parallel with the surface.
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  Speaker 1: As I came into the upper air, the temperature of
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  Speaker 1: sphere began to rise. Forthwith I knew it behooved me
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  Speaker 1: to drop it. Once far below me, in a darkling twilight,
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  Speaker 1: stretched a great expanse of sea. I opened every window
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  Speaker 1: I could, and fell out of sunshine into evening, and
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  Speaker 1: out of evening into night. Vaster grew the earth, and
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  Speaker 1: vast swallowed up the stars and the silvery translucent Starlit
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  Speaker 1: veil of cloud it wore, spread out to catch me.
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  Speaker 1: At last, the world seemed no longer a sphere, but
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  Speaker 1: flat and then concave. It was no longer a planet
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  Speaker 1: in the sky, but the world of man. I shut
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  Speaker 1: all but an inch or so of earthward window, and
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  Speaker 1: dropped with a slackening velocity. The broadening water, now so
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  Speaker 1: near that I could see the dark glitter of the waves,
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  Speaker 1: rushed up to meet me. The sphere became very hot.
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  Speaker 1: I snapped the last strip of window and sat scowling
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  Speaker 1: and biting my knuckles, waiting for the impact. The sphere
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  Speaker 1: hit the water with a huge splash. It must have
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  Speaker 1: sent its fathoms high. At the splash, I flung the
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  Speaker 1: cavarite shutters open. Down I went, but slower and slower,
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  Speaker 1: and then I felt the sphere pressing against my feet,
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  Speaker 1: and so drove up again as a bubble drives. And
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  Speaker 1: at the last I was floating and rocking upon the
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  Speaker 1: surface of the sea, and my journey in space was
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  Speaker 1: at an end. The night was dark and overcast. Two
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  Speaker 1: yellow pin points far away showed the passing of a ship,
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  Speaker 1: and nearer was a red glare that came and went.
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  Speaker 1: Had not the electricity of my glow lamp exhausted itself,
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  Speaker 1: I could have got picked up that night. In spite
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  Speaker 1: of the inordinate fatigue I was beginning to feel. I
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  Speaker 1: was excited now, and for a time hopeful in a feverish,
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  Speaker 1: impatient way, that so my traveling might end But at
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  Speaker 1: last I ceased to move about and sat wrists on knees,
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  Speaker 1: staring at a distant red light. It swayed up and down, rocking, rocking.
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  Speaker 1: My excitement passed. I realized I had yet to spend
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  Speaker 1: another night, at least in the sphere. I perceived myself
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  Speaker 1: infinitely heavy and fatigued, and so I fell asleep. A
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  Speaker 1: change in my rhythmic motion awakened me. I peered through
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  Speaker 1: the refracting glass and saw that I had come aground
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  Speaker 1: upon a huge, shallow of sand. Far away, I seemed
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  Speaker 1: to see houses and trees, and seaward a curved, vague
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  Speaker 1: distortion of a ship hung between sea and sky. I
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  Speaker 1: stood up and staggered. My one desire was to emerge.
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  Speaker 1: The manhole was upward, and I wrestled with the screw.
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  Speaker 1: Slowly I opened the man hole. At last, the air
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  Speaker 1: was singing in again, as once it had sung out,
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  Speaker 1: But this time I did not wait until the pressure
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  Speaker 1: was adjusted. In another moment, I had the weight of
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  Speaker 1: the window on my hands, and I was open, wide
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  Speaker 1: open to the old, familiar sky of Earth. The air
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  Speaker 1: hit me on the chest so that I gasped. I
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  Speaker 1: dropped the glass screw. I cried out, put my hands
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  Speaker 1: to my chest, and sat down. For a time I
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  Speaker 1: was in pain. Then I took deep breaths. At last
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  Speaker 1: I could rise and move about again. I tried to
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  Speaker 1: thrust my head through the manhole, and the sphere rolled over.
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  Speaker 1: It was as though something had lugged my head down.
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  Speaker 1: Directly it emerged. I ducked back sharply, or I should
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  Speaker 1: have been pinned face under water. After some wriggling and shoving,
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  Speaker 1: I managed to crawl out upon sand, over which the
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  Speaker 1: retreating waves still came and wet. I did not attempt
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  Speaker 1: to stand up. It seemed to me that my body
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  Speaker 1: must be suddenly changed to lead. Mother Earth had her
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  Speaker 1: grip on me. Now no cavalright intervening. I sat down,
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  Speaker 1: heedless of the water that came over my feet. It
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  Speaker 1: was dawn, a gray dawn, rather overcast, but showing here
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  Speaker 1: and there a long patch of greenish gray. Some way
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  Speaker 1: out a ship was lying at anchor, a pale silhouette
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  Speaker 1: of a ship with one yellow light. The water came
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  Speaker 1: rippling in in long, shallow waves, away to the right
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  Speaker 1: curve of the land, a shingle bank with little hovels,
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  Speaker 1: and at last a lighthouse, a sailing mark, and a
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  Speaker 1: point inland, stretched to space of level sand broken here
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  Speaker 1: and there by pools of water, and ending a mile away,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps in a low shore of scrub. To the northeast,
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  Speaker 1: some isolated watering place was visible a row of gaunt
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  Speaker 1: lodging houses, the tallest things that I could see on earth,
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  Speaker 1: dull dabs against the brightening sky. What strange men can
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  Speaker 1: have reared these vertical piles in such an amplitude of space.
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  Speaker 1: I do not know there they are like pieces of
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  Speaker 1: brighton lost in the waist. For a long time I
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  Speaker 1: sat there, yawning and rubbing my face. At last, I
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  Speaker 1: struggled to rise. It made me feel that I was
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  Speaker 1: lifting a weight. I stood up. I stared at the
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  Speaker 1: distant houses for the first time since our starvation in
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  Speaker 1: the crater. I thought of earthly food, bacon, I whispered, eggs,
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  Speaker 1: good toast, and good coffee. And how the devil am
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  Speaker 1: I going to get all this stuff to limpny. I
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  Speaker 1: wondered where I was. It wasn't east shore anyhow, and
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  Speaker 1: I had seen Europe before I dropped. I heard footsteps
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  Speaker 1: crunching in the sand, and a little round faced, friendly
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  Speaker 1: looking man in flannels with a bathing towel wrapped about
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  Speaker 1: his shoulders and his bathing dress over his arm, appeered
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  Speaker 1: up the beach. I knew instantly that I must be
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  Speaker 1: in England. He was staring most intently at the sphere
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  Speaker 1: and me. He advanced, staring. I dare say I looked
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  Speaker 1: a ferocious, savage, enough dirty, unkempt to an indescribable degree,
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  Speaker 1: but it did not occur to me at the time.
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  Speaker 1: He stopped at a distance of twenty yards. Hullo, my man,
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  Speaker 1: he said, doubtfully, Hello yourself, said I. He advanced, reassured
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  Speaker 1: by that. What on earth is that thing? He asked?
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  Speaker 1: Can you tell me where I am? I asked. That's
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  Speaker 1: little Stone, he said, pointing to the houses. And that's dungeness.
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  Speaker 1: Have you just landed? What's that thing? You've got some
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  Speaker 1: sort of machine? Yes? Have you floated ashore? Have you
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  Speaker 1: been wrecked or something? What is it? I meditated swiftly.
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  Speaker 1: I made an estimate of the little man's appearance. As
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  Speaker 1: he drew nearer. By jove, he said, you've had a
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  Speaker 1: time of it, I thought you, Well, where were you
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  Speaker 1: cast away? Is that thing a sort of floating thing
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  Speaker 1: for saving life. I decided to take that line for
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  Speaker 1: the present. I made a few vague affirmatives. I want help,
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  Speaker 1: I said, hoarsely. I want to get some stuff up
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  Speaker 1: the beach. Stuff I can't very well leave about. I
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  Speaker 1: became aware of three other pleasant looking young men with towels,
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  Speaker 1: blazers and straw hats, coming down the sands toward me.
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  Speaker 1: Evidently the early bathing section of this little stone. Help,
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  Speaker 1: said the young man. Rather, he became vaguely active, What
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  Speaker 1: particularly do you want done? He turned round and gesticulated.
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  Speaker 1: The three young men accelerated their pace. In a minute
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  Speaker 1: they were there about me, plying me with questions I
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  Speaker 1: was indisposed to answer. I'll tell all that later, I said.
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  Speaker 1: I'm dead beat. I'm a rag. Come up to the hotel,
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  Speaker 1: said the foremost little man. We'll look after that thing there.
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  Speaker 1: I hesitated. I can't, I said, in that sphere, there's
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  Speaker 1: two big bars of gold. They looked incredulously at one another,
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  Speaker 1: then at me with a new inquiry. I went to
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  Speaker 1: the sphere, stooped, crept in, and presently they had the
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  Speaker 1: celenite's crowbars and the broken chain before them. If I
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  Speaker 1: had not been so horribly fagged. I could have laughed
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  Speaker 1: at them. It was like kittens round a beetle. They
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  Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with the stuff. The fat
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  Speaker 1: little man stooped and lifted the end of one of
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  Speaker 1: the bars, and then dropped it with a grunt. Then
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  Speaker 1: they all did it's le or gold? Said one. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: it's gold, said another. Gold. Right enough, said the third.
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  Speaker 1: Then they all stared at me, and then they all
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  Speaker 1: stared at the ship lying at anchor. I say, cried
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  Speaker 1: the little man. But where did you get that? I
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  Speaker 1: was too tired to keep up a lie. I got
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  Speaker 1: it in the moon. I saw them stare at one another.
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  Speaker 1: Look here, said I. I'm not going to argue. Now
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  Speaker 1: help me carry these lumps of gold up to the hotel.
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  Speaker 1: I guess with rest two of you can manage one.
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  Speaker 1: And I'll trail this chain thing, and I'll tell you
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  Speaker 1: more when I've had some food. And how about that thing?
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  Speaker 1: It won't hurt there, I said, anyhow confound it. It
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  Speaker 1: must stop there now. If if the tide comes up,
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  Speaker 1: it will float all right. And in a state of
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  Speaker 1: enormous wonderment, these young men most obediently hoisted my treasures
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  Speaker 1: on their shoulders, and with limbs that felt like lead,
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  Speaker 1: I headed a sort of procession towards that distant fragment
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  Speaker 1: of seafront. Halfway there we were reinforced by two awe
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  Speaker 1: stricken little girls with spades, and later a lean little
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  Speaker 1: boy with a penetrating sniff appeared. He was, I remember,
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  Speaker 1: wheeling a bicycle, and he accompanied us at a distance
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  Speaker 1: of about a hundred yards on our right flank. And then,
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  Speaker 1: I suppose gave us up as uninteresting, mounted his bicycle
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  Speaker 1: and rode off over the level sands in the direction
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  Speaker 1: of the sphere. I glanced back after him. He won't
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  Speaker 1: touch it, said the stout young man, reassuringly, and I
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  Speaker 1: was only too willing to be reassured. At first, something
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  Speaker 1: of the gray of the morning was in my mind.
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  Speaker 1: But presently the sun dis engaged itself from the level
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  Speaker 1: clouds of the horizon and lit the world, and turned
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  Speaker 1: the leaden sea to glittering waters. My spirits rose. A
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  Speaker 1: sense of the vast importance of the things I had
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  Speaker 1: done and had yet to do, came with the sunlight
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  Speaker 1: into my mind. I laughed aloud as the foremost man
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  Speaker 1: staggered under my gold, When indeed I took my place
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  Speaker 1: in the world. How amazed the world would be if
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  Speaker 1: it had not been for my inordinate fatigue. The landlord
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  Speaker 1: of the little Stone Hotel would have been amusing as
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  Speaker 1: he hesitated between my gold and my respectable company on
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  Speaker 1: the one and my filthy appearance on the other. But
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  Speaker 1: at last I found myself in a terrestrial bathroom once more,
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  Speaker 1: with warm water to wash myself with, and a change
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  Speaker 1: of raiment preposterously small, indeed, but anyhow clean, that the
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  Speaker 1: genial little man had lent me. He lent me a razor, too,
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  Speaker 1: But I could not screw up my resolution to attack
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  Speaker 1: even the outposts of the bristling beard that covered my face.
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  Speaker 1: I sat down to an English breakfast and ate with
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  Speaker 1: a sort of languid appetite, an appetite many weeks old
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  Speaker 1: and very decrepit, and stirred myself to answer the questions
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  Speaker 1: of the four young men. And I told them the truth, well,
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  Speaker 1: said I, as you press me. I got it in
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  Speaker 1: the moon the moon, Yes, the moon in the sky.
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  Speaker 1: But how do you mean what I say? Confound it?
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  Speaker 1: Then you have just come from the moon exactly through
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  Speaker 1: space in that ball. And I took a delicious mouthful
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  Speaker 1: of egg. I made a private note that when I
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  Speaker 1: went back to the Moon, I would take a box
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  Speaker 1: of eggs. I could see clearly that they did not
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  Speaker 1: believe one word what I told them, but evidently they
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  Speaker 1: considered me the most respectable liar they had ever met.
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  Speaker 1: They glanced at one another, and then concentrated the fire
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  Speaker 1: of their eyes on me. I fancied they expected a
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  Speaker 1: clue to me in the way I helped myself to salt.
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  Speaker 1: They seemed to find something significant in my peppering my egg.
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  Speaker 1: These strangely shaped masses of gold they had staggered under
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  Speaker 1: held their minds. There the lumps lay in front of me,
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  Speaker 1: each worth thousands of pounds, and as impossible for anyone
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  Speaker 1: to steal as a house or a piece of land.
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  Speaker 1: As I looked at their curious faces over my coffee cup,
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  Speaker 1: I realized something of the enormous wilderness of explanations into
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  Speaker 1: which I should have to wander to render myself comprehensible. Again,
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  Speaker 1: you don't really mean, began the youngest young man, in
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  Speaker 1: the tone of one who speaks to an opostione child.
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  Speaker 1: Just pass me that toastrack, I said, and shut him
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  Speaker 1: up completely. But look here, I say, began one of
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  Speaker 1: the others. We're not going to believe that you know. Ah, well,
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  Speaker 1: said I, and shrugged my shoulders. He doesn't want to
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  Speaker 1: tell us, said the youngest young man in a stage aside,
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  Speaker 1: and then with an appearance of great sang, fois you
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  Speaker 1: don't mind if I take a cigarette? I waved him
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  Speaker 1: a cordial assent and proceeded with my breakfast. Two of
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  Speaker 1: the others went and looked out of the farther window
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  Speaker 1: and talked inaudibly. I was struck by a thought. The tide,
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  Speaker 1: I said, is running out. There was a pause, a doubt.
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  Speaker 1: Who should answer me? It's near the ebb, said the
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  Speaker 1: fat little man. Well, anyhow, I said, it won't float far.
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  Speaker 1: I decapitated my third egg and began a little speech.
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  Speaker 1: Look here, I said. Please don't imagine I'm surly or
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  Speaker 1: telling you uncivilise, or anything of that sort. I'm forced
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  Speaker 1: almost to be a little short and mysterious. I can
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  Speaker 1: quite understand this is as queer as it can be,
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  Speaker 1: and that your imaginations must be going it. I can
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  Speaker 1: assure you you're in it a memorable time, but I
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  Speaker 1: can't make it clear to you now it's impossible. I
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  Speaker 1: give you my word of honor. I've come from the moon,
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  Speaker 1: and that's all I can tell you. All the same.
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  Speaker 1: I'm tremendously obliged to you, you know, tremendously. I hope
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  Speaker 1: that my manner hasn't at any way given you offense.
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  Speaker 1: Oh not in the least, said the youngest young man, affably,
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  Speaker 1: we can quite understand, and staring hard at me all
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  Speaker 1: the time. He healed his chair back until it very
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  Speaker 1: nearly upset and recovered with some exertion. Not a bit
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  Speaker 1: of it, said the fat young man. Don't you imagine that?
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  Speaker 1: And they all got up and dispersed, and walked about
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  Speaker 1: and lit cigarettes and generally tried to show they were
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  Speaker 1: perfectly amiable and disengaged and entirely free from the slightest
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  Speaker 1: curiosity about me and the sphere. I'm going to keep
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  Speaker 1: an eye on that ship out there. All the same,
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  Speaker 1: I heard one of them remarking, in an undertone, if
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  Speaker 1: only they could have forced themselves to it, they would,
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  Speaker 1: I believe, even have gone out and left me. I
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  Speaker 1: went on with my third egg. The weather, the fat
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  Speaker 1: little man remarked, presently, has been immense, has it not?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know when we have had such a summer.
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  Speaker 1: Foo wis like a tremendous rocket. And somewhere a window
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  Speaker 1: was broken. What's that, said I it isn't, cried the
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  Speaker 1: little man, and rushed to the corner window. All the
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  Speaker 1: others rushed to the window. Likewise, I sat staring at them.
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  Speaker 1: Suddenly I leaped up, knocked over my third egg, rushed
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  Speaker 1: for the window also. I had just thought of something.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing to be seen there, cried the little man, rushing
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  Speaker 1: for the door. It's that boy, I cried, bawling in
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  Speaker 1: hoarse fury. It's that a cursed boy. And turning about,
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  Speaker 1: I pushed the waiter aside. He had just brung me
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  Speaker 1: some more toast, and rushed violently out of the room,
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  Speaker 1: and down and out upon the queer little esplanade in
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  Speaker 1: front of the hotel. The sea, which had been smooth,
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  Speaker 1: was rough now with hurrying cat's paws, and all about
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  Speaker 1: where the sphear had been was tumbled water, like the
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  Speaker 1: wake of a ship. Above a little puff of cloud
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  Speaker 1: whirled like dispersing smoke, and the three or four people
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  Speaker 1: on the beach were peering up with interrogative faces towards
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  Speaker 1: the point of that unexpected report, and that was all
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  Speaker 1: boots and waiters, and the four young men in blazers
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  Speaker 1: came rushing out behind me. Shouts came from windows and doors,
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  Speaker 1: and all sorts of worrying people came into sight agape.
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  Speaker 1: For a time, I stood there, too overwhelmed by this
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  Speaker 1: new development to think of the people. At first, I
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  Speaker 1: was too stunned to see the thing is any definite disaster.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I was just stunned, as a man is by some
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: accidental violent blow. It is only afterwards begins to appreciate
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  Speaker 1: his specific injury. Good Lord, I felt as though somebody
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  Speaker 1: was pouring funk out of a can down the back
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  Speaker 1: of my neck. My legs became feeble. I had got
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  Speaker 1: the first intimation of what the disaster meant for me.
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  Speaker 1: There was that confounded boy sky high. I was utterly left.
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  Speaker 1: There was the gold in the coffee room, my only
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  Speaker 1: possession on earth. How would it all work out? The
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  Speaker 1: general effect was of a gigantic, unmanageable confusion, I say,
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  Speaker 1: said the voice of the little man behind. I say,
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  Speaker 1: you know. I wheeled about, and there were twenty or
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  Speaker 1: thirty people, a sort of irregular investment of people, all
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  Speaker 1: bombarding me with dumb interrogation, with infinite doubt and suspicion.
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  Speaker 1: I felt the compulsion of their eyes intolerably. I groaned aloud.
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  Speaker 1: I can't, I shouted. I tell you I can't. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not equal to it. You must puzzle and and be
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  Speaker 1: damned to you. I gesticulated convulsively. He receded a step,
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  Speaker 1: as though I had threatened him. I made a bolt
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  Speaker 1: through them into the hotel. I charged back into the
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  Speaker 1: coffee room, rang the bell furiously. I gripped the waiter
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  Speaker 1: as he entered. Do you hear? I shouted, get help
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  Speaker 1: and carry these bars up to my room right away.
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  Speaker 1: He failed to understand me, and I shouted and raved
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  Speaker 1: at him. A scared looking little old man in a
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: green apron appeared, and further two of the young men
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  Speaker 1: in flannels. I made a dash at them and commandeered
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  Speaker 1: their services. As soon as the goal was in my room,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I felt free to quarrel. Now get out, I shouted,
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  Speaker 1: all of you, get out if you don't want to
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: see a man go mad before your eyes. And I
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: helped the waiter by the shoulder as he hesitated in
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  Speaker 1: the doorway. And then as soon as I had the
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  Speaker 1: door locked on them all. I tore off the little
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  Speaker 1: man's clothes again, shied them right and left, and got
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: into bed forthwith And there I lay, swearing and panting
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and cooling for a very long time. At last I
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: was calm enough to get out of bed and ring
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: up the round eyed waiter for a flannel night shirt,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: a soda and whisky and some good cigars, and these
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: things being procured me. After an exasperating delay that drove
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: me several times to the bell, I locked the door
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: again and proceeded very deliberately to look the entire situation
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: in the face. The net result of the great experiment
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: presented itself as an absolute failure. It was a rout,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and I was the sole survivor. It was an absolute collapse,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and this was the final disaster. There was nothing for
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: it but to save myself and as much as I
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: could in the way of prospects from our debacle. At
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: one fatal crowning blow, all my vague resolutions of return
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and recovery had vanished, my intention of going back to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the Moon, of getting as fearful of gold, and afterwards,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of having a fragment of cavalright analyzed, and so recovering
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: the great secret, perhaps finally even of recovering Cavor's body.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: All these ideas vanished altogether. I was the sole survivor,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and that was all. I think that going to bed
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: was one of the luckiest ideas I have ever had
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: in an emergency. I really believe I should either have
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: got loose headed or done some indiscreet thing. But there,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: locked in and secure from all interruptions, I could think
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: out the position in all its bearings, and make my
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: arrangements at leisure. Of course, it was quite clear to
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: me what had happened to the boy. He crawled into
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the sphere, mettled with the studs, shut the cava right windows,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and gone up. It was highly improbable he had screwed
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the manhole stopper, and even if he had, the chances
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: were one thousand to one against his getting back. It
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: was fairly evident that he would gravitate with my bails
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: to somewhere near the middle of the sphere and remain there,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and so ceased to be a legitimate terrestrial interest, however
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: remarkable he might seem to the inhabitants of some remote
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: quarter of space. I very speedily convinced myself on that point,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: and as for any responsibility I might have in the matter.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: The more I reflected upon that, the clearer it became
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that if only I kept quiet about things, I need
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: not trouble myself about that. If I was faced by
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: sorrowing parents demanding their lost boy, I had merely to
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: demand my loss sphere or ask them what they meant.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: At first I had had a vision of weeping parents
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: and guardians and all sorts of complications. But now I
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: saw that I simply had to keep my mouth shut,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and nothing in that way could arise. And indeed, the
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: more I lay and smoked and thought, the more evident
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: became the wisdom of impenetrability. It is within the right
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: of every British citizen, provided he does not commit damage,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: nor in decorum, to appear suddenly wherever he pleases, and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: as ragged and filthy as he pleases, and with whatever
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: account of virgin gold he sees fit to encumber himself,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and no one has any right at all to hinder
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: and detain him in this procedure. I formulated that at
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: last to myself, and repeated it over as a sort
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: of private magnet charta of my liberty. Once I had
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: put that issue on one side. I could take up
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: and consider in an equipal manner certain considerations I had
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: scarcely dared to think of before, namely those arising out
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of the circumstances of my bankruptcy. But now looking at
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: this matter calmly and at leisure, I could see that
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: if only I suppressed my identity by a temporary assumption
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: of some less well known name, and if I retained
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: the two months beard that had grown upon me, the
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: risk of any annoyance from the spiteful creditor to whom
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I had already alluded became very small. Indeed, from that
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: to a definite course of rational worldly action was plain sailing.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: It was all amazingly petty, no doubt. But what was
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: there remaining for me to do? Whatever I did, I
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: was resolved that I would keep myself level and right
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: side up. I ordered up writing materials and addressed a
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: letter to the new Romney Bank the nearest the waiter
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: informed me, telling the manager I wished to open an
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: account with him, and requesting him to say, and two
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: trustworthy persons properly authenticated in a cab with a good
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: horse to fetch some hundredweight of gold with which I
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: happened to be encumbered. I signed the letter Blake, which
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: seemed to me to be a thoroughly respectable sort of name.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: This done, I got a folkestone blue book, picked out
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: an outfitter and asked him to send a cutter to
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: measure me for a dark tweed suit, ordering at the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: same time a valise dressing bag, brown boots, shirts, hat
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: to fit, and so forth, and from a watchmaker. I
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: also ordered a watch, and these letters being dispatched, I
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: had up as good as lunch as the hotel could give,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and then lay smoking a cigar as calm and ordinary
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: as possible, until, in accordance with my instructions, two duly
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: authenticated clerks came from the bank and weighed and took
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: away my gold, after which I pulled the clothes over
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: my ears in order to drown any knocking, and went
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: very comfortably to sleep. I went to sleep, no doubt.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: It was a prosaic thing for the first man back
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: from the moon to do. And I can imagine that
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the young and imaginative reader will find my behavior disappointing.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But I was horribly fatigued and bothered, and confound it.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: What else was there to do. There certainly was not
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the remotest chance of my being believed if I had
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: told my story then, and it would certainly have subjected
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: me to intolerable annoyances. I went to sleep. When at
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: last I woke up again, I was ready to face
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the world as I have always been accustomed to face
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: it since I came to years of discretion. And so
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I got away to Italy, and there it is I
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: am writing this story. If the world will not have
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: it as fact, then the world may take it as fiction.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: It is no concern of mine. And now that the
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: account is finished, I am amazed to think how completely
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: this adventure is gone and done with. Everybody believes that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Cavor was a not very brilliant scientific experimenter who blew
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: up his house and himself at Limpney. And they explain
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the bang that followed my arrival at Littlestone by a
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: reference to the experiments with explosives that are going on
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: continually at the government establishment of Lydd two miles away.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I must confess that hitherto I have not acknowledged my
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: share in the disappearance of Master Tommy Simmons, which was
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: that little boy's name that perhaps may prove a difficult
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: item of corroboration to explain away. They account for my
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: appearance in rags with two bars of indisputable gold upon
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the little Stone Beach, in various ingenious ways. It doesn't
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: worry me what they think of me, they say. I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: have strung all these things together to avoid being questioned
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: too closely as to the source of my wealth. I
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: would like to see the man who would invent a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: story that would hold together like this one. Well, they
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: must take it as fiction. There it is. I have
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: told my story, and now I suppose I have to
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: take up the worries of this terrestrial life again. Even
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: if one has been to the moon, one has still
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: there earn a living. So I am working here at
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Amalfi on the scenario of that play I sketched before
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Kavor came walking into my world, and I am trying
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: to piece my life together as it was before ever
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I saw him. I must confess that I find it
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: hard to keep my mind on the play when the
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: moonshine comes into my room. It is full moon here,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and last night I was out on the pergola for hours,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: staring away at the shining blankness that hides so much.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Imagine it. Tables and chairs and trestles and bars of
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: gold confound it. If only no one could hit on
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: that cavaret again. But a thing like that doesn't come
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: twice in a life. Here, I am a little better
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: off than I was at Lempne, and that is all.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And Cavor has committed suicide in a more elaborate way
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: than any human being ever did before. So the story
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: closes as finally and completely as a dream. It fits
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: in so little with all the other things of life,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So much of it is so utterly remote from all
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: human experience, the leaping, the eating, the breathing, and these
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: weightless times, that, indeed there are moments when, in spite
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: of my moon gold, I do more than half believe
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: myself that the whole thing was a dream. End of
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: chapter