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In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter Fourth Section 1-3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter four, sections one, two, and three of
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Speaker 1: In the Days of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. In
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Speaker 1: the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells, Book one,
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Speaker 1: Chapter four, Sections one, two and three War Section one.
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Speaker 1: From that moment when I insulted old missus Verral, I
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Speaker 1: became representative. I was a man who stood for all
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Speaker 1: the disinherited of the world. I had no hope of
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Speaker 1: pride or pleasure left in me. I was raging rebellion
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Speaker 1: against God and mankind. There were no more vague intentions
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Speaker 1: swaying me this way, and that I was perfectly clear
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Speaker 1: now upon what I meant to do. I would make
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Speaker 1: my protest and die. I would make my protest and die.
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Speaker 1: I was going to kill Nettie. Nettie who had smiled
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Speaker 1: and promised and given herself to another, and who stood
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Speaker 1: now for all the conceivable delightfulness, the lost imaginations of
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Speaker 1: the youthful heart, the unattainable joys in life. And Verral,
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Speaker 1: who stood for all who profited by the incurable injustice
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Speaker 1: of our social order. I would kill them both, and
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Speaker 1: that being done, I would blow my brains out and
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Speaker 1: see what vengeance followed my blank refusal to live. So
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Speaker 1: indeed I was resolved. I raged monstrously, and above me,
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Speaker 1: abolishing the stars, triumphant over the yellow, waning moon that
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Speaker 1: followed it. Below, the giant meteor towered up toward the zenith.
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Speaker 1: Let me only kill, I cried, Let me only kill,
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Speaker 1: so I shouted in my frenzy. I was in a
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Speaker 1: fever that defied hunger and fatigue. For a long time,
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Speaker 1: I had prowled over the heath towards Lowchester, talking to myself,
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Speaker 1: And now that night had fully come, I was tramping homeward,
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Speaker 1: walking the long seventeen miles without a thought of rest,
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Speaker 1: and I had eaten nothing since the morning. I suppose
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Speaker 1: I must count myself mad, but I can recall my ravings.
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Speaker 1: There were times when I walked weeping through that brightness
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Speaker 1: that was neither night nor day. There were times when
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Speaker 1: I reasoned in a topsy turvy fashion with what I
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Speaker 1: called the spirit of all things. But always I spoke
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Speaker 1: to that white glory in the sky. Why am I
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Speaker 1: here only to suffer ignominies? I asked, why have you
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Speaker 1: made me with pride that cannot be satisfied with desires
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Speaker 1: that turn and rend me? Is it a jest? This
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Speaker 1: world a joke you play on your guests. I even
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Speaker 1: I have a better humor than that. Why not learn
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Speaker 1: from me a certain decency of mercy? Why not undo?
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Speaker 1: Have I ever torment it day by day? Some wretched
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Speaker 1: worm making filth for the trail, through filth that disgusts it,
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Speaker 1: starving it, bruising it, mocking it. Why should you? Your
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Speaker 1: jokes are clumsy? Try try some milder fun up there?
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Speaker 1: Do you hear something that doesn't hurt so infernally? You say?
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Speaker 1: This is your purpose? Your purpose with me? You are
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Speaker 1: making something with me birth pangs of a soul? Ah,
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Speaker 1: how can I believe you? You forget? I have eyes
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Speaker 1: for other things. Let my own case go? But what
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Speaker 1: of the frog beneath the cartwheel? God? And the bird?
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Speaker 1: The cat has torn? After such blasphemies, I would fling
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Speaker 1: out a ridiculous little debating society hand answer me that
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Speaker 1: a week ago it had been moonlight, white and black
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Speaker 1: and hard across the spaces of the park, but now
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Speaker 1: the light was livid and full of the quality of haze.
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Speaker 1: An extraordinarily low white mist, not three feet above the ground,
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Speaker 1: drifted broodingly across the grass, and the trees rose ghostly
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Speaker 1: out of that phantom sea. Great and shadowy and strange
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Speaker 1: was the world that night. No one seemed a broad
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Speaker 1: I and my little cracked voice drifted solitary through the
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Speaker 1: silent mysteries. Sometimes I argued, as I have told. Sometimes
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Speaker 1: I tumbled along in moody vacuity. Sometimes my torment was
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Speaker 1: vivid and acute. Abruptly, out of apathy would come a
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Speaker 1: boiling paroxysm of fury. When I thought of Nettie mocking
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Speaker 1: me and laughing, and of her and Verral clasped in
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Speaker 1: one another's arms. I will not have it so, I,
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Speaker 1: I screamed. I will not have it so. And in
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Speaker 1: one of these raving fits, I drew my revolver from
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Speaker 1: my pocket and fired into the quiet night. Three times
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Speaker 1: I fired it. The bullets tore through the air, The
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Speaker 1: startled trees told one another in diminishing echoes the thing
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Speaker 1: I had done. And then, with a slow finality, the
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Speaker 1: vast and patient night healed again to calm my shots,
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Speaker 1: my curses, and blasphemies, my prayers for Anon. I prayed
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Speaker 1: that silence took them all. It was, how can I
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Speaker 1: express it, A stifled outcry, tranquilized, lost amid the serene assumptions,
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Speaker 1: the overwhelming empire of that brightness, the noise of my shots,
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Speaker 1: the impact upon things had for the instant been enormous.
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Speaker 1: Then it had passed away. I found myself standing with
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Speaker 1: a revolver held up, astonished, my motions penetrated by something
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Speaker 1: I could not understand. Then I looked up over my
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Speaker 1: shoulder at the great star and remained staring at it.
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Speaker 1: Who are you? I said? At last, I was like
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Speaker 1: a man in a solitary desert who has suddenly heard
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Speaker 1: a voice that too passed. As I came over Clayton Crest,
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Speaker 1: I recalled that I missed the multitude that now night
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Speaker 1: after night walked out the stair at the Comet, and
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Speaker 1: the little preacher in the waste beyond the hoardings, who
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Speaker 1: warned sinners to repent before the judgment was not in
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Speaker 1: his usual place. It was long past midnight and every
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Speaker 1: one had gone home. But I did not think of
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Speaker 1: this at first, and the solitude perplexed me and left
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Speaker 1: a memory behind The gas lamps were all extinguished because
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Speaker 1: of the brightness of the comet, and that too was unfamiliar.
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Speaker 1: The little news agent in the still high street had
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Speaker 1: shut up and gone to bed, But one belated board
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Speaker 1: had been put out late and forgotten, and it still
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Speaker 1: bore its placard. The word upon it, there was but
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Speaker 1: one word upon it, in staring letters, was war. You
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Speaker 1: figure that empty, mean street, emptily echoing my footsteps, no
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Speaker 1: soul awake and audible, but me then my halt at
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Speaker 1: the placard, and amidst that sleeping stillness, smeared hastily upon
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Speaker 1: the board, a little askew and crumpled, but quite distinct
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Speaker 1: beneath that cool meteoric glare, preposterous and appalling, the measureless
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Speaker 1: evil of that word war. Section two. I awoke in
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Speaker 1: that state of equanimity that so often follows an emotional drenching.
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Speaker 1: It was late, and my mother was beside my bed.
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Speaker 1: She had some breakfast for me on a battered tray.
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Speaker 1: Don't get up yet, dear, she said, you've been sleeping.
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Speaker 1: It was three o'clock when you got home last night.
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Speaker 1: You must have been tired out. Your poor face, She
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Speaker 1: went on, was as white as a sheet, and your
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Speaker 1: eyes shining. It frightened me to let you in, and
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Speaker 1: you stumbled on the stairs. My eyes went quietly to
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Speaker 1: my coat pocket, where something still bulged. She probably had
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Speaker 1: not noticed. I went to checkshill. I said, you know,
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Speaker 1: perhaps I got a letter last evening. And as she
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Speaker 1: bent near me to put the tray upon my knees,
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Speaker 1: she kissed my hair softly. For a moment we both
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Speaker 1: remained still resting on that, her cheek just touching my head.
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Speaker 1: I took the tray from her to end the paws.
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Speaker 1: Don't touch my clothes, mummy, I said sharply, as she
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Speaker 1: moved towards them. I'm still equal to a clothes brush.
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Speaker 1: And then as she turned away, I astonished her by saying, you,
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Speaker 1: dear mother, you a little I understand only now, dear mother,
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Speaker 1: Oh let me be, Let me be, And with the
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Speaker 1: docility of a good servant, she went from me, dear
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Speaker 1: heart of submission that the world and I had used
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Speaker 1: so ill, it seemed to me that morning that I
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Speaker 1: could never give way to a gust of passion again.
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Speaker 1: A sorrowful firmness of the mind possessed me. My purpose
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Speaker 1: seemed now as inflexible as iron. There was neither love,
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Speaker 1: nor hate nor fear left in me. Only I pitied
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Speaker 1: my mother greatly for all that was still to come.
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Speaker 1: I ate my breakfast slowly and thought or I could
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Speaker 1: find out about Shamptonbury and how I might hope to
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Speaker 1: get there. I had not five shillings in the world.
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Speaker 1: I dressed methodically, choosing least afraid of my collars and
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Speaker 1: shaving much more carefully than was my wont Then I
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Speaker 1: went down to the public library to consult a map.
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Speaker 1: Shamptonbury was on the coast of Essex, a long and
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Speaker 1: complicated journey from Clayton. I went to the railway station
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Speaker 1: and made some memoranda from the timetables. The porters I
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Speaker 1: asked were not very clear about Shamptonbury, but the booking
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Speaker 1: office clerk was helpful and we puzzled out all I
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Speaker 1: wanted to know. Then I came out into the Coley
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Speaker 1: Street again, at the least I ought to have two pounds.
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Speaker 1: I went back to the public library and into the
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Speaker 1: newspaper room to think over this problem. A fact intruded
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Speaker 1: itself upon me. People seemed in an altogether exceptional stir
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Speaker 1: about the morning journals. There was something unusual in the
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Speaker 1: air of the room, more people and more talking than usual,
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Speaker 1: and for a moment I was puzzled. Then I bethought
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Speaker 1: me tis war with Germany. Of course, a naval battle
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Speaker 1: was supposed to be in progress in the North Sea.
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Speaker 1: Let them. I returned to the consideration of my own affairs. Parload.
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Speaker 1: Could I go and make it up with him and
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Speaker 1: then borrow I weighed the chances of that. Then I
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Speaker 1: thought of selling or pawning something, but that seemed difficult.
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Speaker 1: My winter overcoat had not cost a pound when it
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Speaker 1: was new. My watch was not likely to fetch many shillings. Still,
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Speaker 1: both these things might be factors. I thought, with a
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Speaker 1: certain repugnance of the little store my mother was probably
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Speaker 1: making for the rent. She was very secretive about that,
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Speaker 1: and it was locked in an old tea caddy in
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Speaker 1: her bedroom. I knew it would be almost impossible to
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Speaker 1: get any of that money from her willingly. And though
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Speaker 1: I told myself that in this issue of passion and
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Speaker 1: death no detail mattered, I could not get rid of
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Speaker 1: tormenting scruples. Whenever I thought of that tea caddy. Was
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Speaker 1: there no other course? Perhaps after every other source had
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Speaker 1: been tapped, I might supplement with a few shillings, frankly
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Speaker 1: begged from her. These others, I said to myself, thinking
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Speaker 1: without passion for wants of the sons of the secure
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Speaker 1: would find it difficult to run their romances on a
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Speaker 1: pawn shop basis. However, we must manage it. I felt
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Speaker 1: the day was passing on, but I did not get
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Speaker 1: excited about that. Slow is swiftest, Parload used to say,
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Speaker 1: and I meant to get everything thought out completely, to
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Speaker 1: take a long aim, and then to act as a
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Speaker 1: bullet flies. I hesitated at a pawn shop on my
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Speaker 1: way home to my midday meal, but I determined not
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Speaker 1: to pledge my watch until I could bring my overcoat. Also,
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Speaker 1: I ate silently revolving plans Section three. After our midday dinner,
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Speaker 1: it was a potato pie, mostly potato, with some scraps
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Speaker 1: of cabbage and bacon. I put on my overcoat and
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Speaker 1: got it out of the house while my mother was
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Speaker 1: in the scullery at the back. A scullery in the
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Speaker 1: old world was, in the case of such houses as ours,
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Speaker 1: a damp, unsavory mainly subterranean region behind the dark living
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Speaker 1: room kitchen that was rendered more than typically dirty in
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Speaker 1: our case, by the fact that into it the coal cellar,
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Speaker 1: a yawning pit of black uncleanliness opened and diffused small
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Speaker 1: crunchable particles about the uneven brick floor. It was a
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Speaker 1: region of washing up, that greasy damp function that followed
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Speaker 1: every meal. Its atmosphere had ever a cooling steaminess, and
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Speaker 1: the memory of boiled cabbage, and the sooty black stains
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Speaker 1: where saucepan or kettle had been put down for a minute.
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Speaker 1: Scraps of potato peel caught by the strainer of the
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Speaker 1: escape pipe, and rags of a quite indescribable horribleness of
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Speaker 1: acquisition called dishclouds rise in my memory at the name.
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Speaker 1: The altar of this place was the sink, a tank
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Speaker 1: of stone revolting to a refined touch, grease filmed, an
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Speaker 1: unpleasant to see. And above this was a tap for
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Speaker 1: cold water, so arranged that when the water descended it
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Speaker 1: splashed and wetted whoever had turned it on. The tap
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Speaker 1: was our water supply. And in such a place you
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Speaker 1: must fancy a little old woman, rather incompetent and very gentle,
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Speaker 1: a soul of unselfishness and sacrifice in dirty clothes all
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Speaker 1: come from their original colors to a common dusty dark
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Speaker 1: gray in worn, ill fitting boot, with hands distorted by
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Speaker 1: ill use and untidy gray hair. My mother in the winter,
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Speaker 1: her hands would be chapped and she would have a cough,
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Speaker 1: And while she washes up, I go out to sell
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Speaker 1: my overcoat and watch. In order that I may desert her.
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Speaker 1: I gave way to a queer hesitation in pawning my
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Speaker 1: two negotiable articles, a weekly indisposition to pawn and Clayton,
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Speaker 1: where the pawnbroker knew me, carried me to the door
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Speaker 1: of the place in Lynch Street, swathingly, where I had
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Speaker 1: bought my revolver. Then came an idea that I was
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Speaker 1: giving too many facts about myself to one man, and
15:43
Speaker 1: I came back to Clayton. After all. I forgot how
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Speaker 1: much money I got, but I remember that it was
15:49
Speaker 1: rather less than the sum I had made out to
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Speaker 1: be the single fare to Shamptonbury. Still deliberate, I went
15:57
Speaker 1: back to the public library to find out whether it
15:59
Speaker 1: was possible by walking for ten or twelve miles anywhere
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Speaker 1: to shorten the journey. My boots were in a dreadful state.
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Speaker 1: The soul of the left one also was now peeling off,
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Speaker 1: and I could not help perceiving that all my plans
16:15
Speaker 1: might be wrecked if at this crisis I went on
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Speaker 1: shoe leather, in which I could only shuffle. So long
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Speaker 1: as I went softly, they would serve, but not for
16:25
Speaker 1: hard walking. I went to the shoemaker in Hacker Street,
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Speaker 1: but he would not promise any repairs for me under
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Speaker 1: forty eight hours. I got back home about five minutes
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Speaker 1: of three, resolved to start by the five train for
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Speaker 1: Birmingham in any case, but still dissatisfied about my money.
16:46
Speaker 1: I thought of pawning a book or something of that sort,
16:49
Speaker 1: but I could think of nothing of obvious value in
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Speaker 1: the house. My mother's silver, two gravy spoons, and a
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Speaker 1: salt cellar had been pawned for some weeks, hence in
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Speaker 1: fact the June quarter day. But my mind was full
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Speaker 1: of hypothetical opportunities. As I came up the steps to
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Speaker 1: our door, I remarked that mister Gabatus looked at me,
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Speaker 1: suddenly round his dull red curtains, with a sort of
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Speaker 1: alarmed resolution in his eye, and vanished. And as I
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Speaker 1: walked along the passage, he opened his door upon me
17:23
Speaker 1: suddenly and intercepted me. You are figuring me, I hope,
17:29
Speaker 1: has a dark and sullen lout in shabby, cheap old
17:32
Speaker 1: world clothes that are shiny at all the wearing surfaces,
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Speaker 1: and with a discolored red tie and frayed linen. My
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Speaker 1: left hand keeps in my pocket, as though there is
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Speaker 1: something it prefers to keep a grip upon there. Mister
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Speaker 1: Gabatus was shorter than I, and the first note he
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Speaker 1: struck in the impression he made upon any one was
17:55
Speaker 1: of something bright and bird like. I think he wanted
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Speaker 1: to be birdlike. He possessed the possibility of an avian charm,
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Speaker 1: But as a matter of fact, there was nothing of
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Speaker 1: the glowing vitality of the bird in his being, And
18:10
Speaker 1: a bird is never out of breath, and with an
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Speaker 1: open mouth. He was in the clerical dress of that time,
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Speaker 1: that costume that seems now almost the strangest of all
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Speaker 1: our old world clothing, and he presented it in its
18:24
Speaker 1: cheapest form, black of a poor texture, ill fitting, strangely cut.
18:31
Speaker 1: Its long skirts accentuated the tubbiness of his body, the
18:35
Speaker 1: shortness of his legs, the white tie below his all
18:38
Speaker 1: round collar, Beneath his innocent, large spectacled face was a
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Speaker 1: little grubby, and between his not very clean teeth he
18:46
Speaker 1: held a brier pipe. His complexion was whitish, and although
18:51
Speaker 1: he was only thirty three or four, perhaps his sandy
18:54
Speaker 1: hair was already thinning from the top of his head.
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Speaker 1: To your eye, now he would see the strangest figure
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Speaker 1: in the utter disregard of all physical beauty or dignity
19:05
Speaker 1: about him. He would find him extraordinarily odd. But in
19:09
Speaker 1: the old days he met not only with acceptance but respect.
19:14
Speaker 1: He was alive until within a year or so ago,
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Speaker 1: But his later appearance changed. As I saw in that afternoon,
19:22
Speaker 1: he was a very slovenly, ungainly little human being. Indeed,
19:27
Speaker 1: not only was his clothing altogether ugly and queer. But
19:31
Speaker 1: had you stripped the man's start, you would certainly have
19:34
Speaker 1: seen in the bulging paunch that comes from flabby muscle
19:38
Speaker 1: and flabbily controlled appetites, and in the rounded shoulders and
19:43
Speaker 1: flawed and yellowish skin, the same failure of any effort
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Speaker 1: toward clean beauty. You had an instinctive sense that so
19:51
Speaker 1: he had been from the beginning. You felt he was
19:55
Speaker 1: not only drifting through life, eating what came in his way,
19:59
Speaker 1: believing what came in his way, doing without any vigor
20:03
Speaker 1: what came in his way, but that into life also
20:07
Speaker 1: he had drifted. You could not believe him the child
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Speaker 1: of pride, in high resolve, or any splendid passion of love.
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Speaker 1: He had just happened. But we all happened. Then Why
20:19
Speaker 1: am I taking this tone over this poor little curate
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Speaker 1: in particular? Hello, he said, with an assumption of friendly ease.
20:28
Speaker 1: Haven't seen you for weeks? Come in and have a gossip.
20:32
Speaker 1: An invitation from the drawing room lodger was in the
20:35
Speaker 1: nature of a command. I would have liked very greatly
20:38
Speaker 1: to have refused it. Never was invitation more inopportune. But
20:44
Speaker 1: I had not the wit to think of an excuse.
20:47
Speaker 1: All right, I said awkwardly, and he held the door
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Speaker 1: open for me. I'd be very glad if you would,
20:53
Speaker 1: he amplified. One doesn't get much opportunity of intelligent talk
20:57
Speaker 1: in this parish. What the devil was he up to
21:01
Speaker 1: was my secret preoccupation. He fussed about me with a
21:05
Speaker 1: nervous hospitality, talking in jumpy fragments, rubbing his hands together,
21:11
Speaker 1: and taking peeps at me over and round his glasses.
21:15
Speaker 1: As I sat down in his leather covered arm chair,
21:18
Speaker 1: I had an odd memory of the one in the
21:21
Speaker 1: Clayton Dentist's operating room. I know not why they're going
21:26
Speaker 1: to give us trouble in the north Sea, it seems,
21:29
Speaker 1: he remarked, with a sort of innocent zest. I'm glad
21:33
Speaker 1: they mean fighting. There was an air of culture about
21:37
Speaker 1: this room that always cowed me, and that made me constrained,
21:41
Speaker 1: even on this occasion. The table under the window was
21:45
Speaker 1: littered with photographic material and the later albums of his
21:48
Speaker 1: continental souvenirs, and on the American cloth trim shelves that
21:53
Speaker 1: filled the recesses on either side of the fireplace where
21:57
Speaker 1: what I used to think in those days a quite
22:00
Speaker 1: incredible number of books, perhaps eight hundred altogether, including the
22:04
Speaker 1: Reverend Gentleman's photograph albums and college and school text books.
22:10
Speaker 1: This suggestion of learning was enforced by the little wooden
22:13
Speaker 1: shield bearing a college coat of arms that hung over
22:17
Speaker 1: the looking glass, and by a photograph of mister Gabatus
22:21
Speaker 1: in cap and gown in an Oxford frame that adorned
22:25
Speaker 1: the opposite wall. And in the middle of that wall
22:28
Speaker 1: stood his writing desk, which I knew to have pigeon
22:31
Speaker 1: holes when it was opened, and which made him seem
22:34
Speaker 1: not merely cultured, but literary at that he wrote sermons,
22:40
Speaker 1: composing them himself. Yes, he said, taking possession of the
22:44
Speaker 1: hearth rug. The war had to come sooner or later.
22:47
Speaker 1: If we smashed their fleet for them, now, well, there's
22:51
Speaker 1: an end to the matter. He stood on his toes,
22:55
Speaker 1: and then bumped down on his heels and looked blandly
22:58
Speaker 1: through his spectacles at a water color by his sister.
23:02
Speaker 1: The subject was a bunch of violets above the sideboard
23:06
Speaker 1: which was his pantry and tea chest and cellar. Yes,
23:10
Speaker 1: he said. As he did so, I coughed and wondered
23:14
Speaker 1: how I might presently get away. He invited me to
23:19
Speaker 1: smoke that queer old practice, and then, when I declined,
23:23
Speaker 1: began talking in a confidential tone of this dreadful business
23:27
Speaker 1: of the strikes. The war won't improve that outlook, he said,
23:31
Speaker 1: and was very grave for a moment. He spoke of
23:34
Speaker 1: the want of thought for the wives and children shown
23:37
Speaker 1: by the Colliers in striking merely for the sake of
23:40
Speaker 1: the union, And this stirred me to controversy and distracted
23:44
Speaker 1: me a little from my resolution to escape. I don't
23:49
Speaker 1: quite agree with that, I said, clearing my throat. If
23:52
Speaker 1: the men didn't strike for the union, now, if they
23:54
Speaker 1: let that be broken up, where would they be when
23:57
Speaker 1: the pinch of reductions did come? To which it replied
24:02
Speaker 1: that they couldn't expect to get top price wages when
24:05
Speaker 1: the masters were selling bottom price coal. I replied, that
24:09
Speaker 1: isn't it. The masters don't treat them fairly. They have
24:12
Speaker 1: to protect themselves, to which mister Gabatus answered, well, I
24:17
Speaker 1: don't know. I've been in the four towns some time,
24:21
Speaker 1: and I must say I don't think the balance of
24:23
Speaker 1: injustice falls on the master's side. It falls on the men.
24:28
Speaker 1: I agreed, wilfully misunderstanding him, and so we worked our
24:33
Speaker 1: way toward an argument. Confound this argument, I thought, but
24:37
Speaker 1: I had no skill in self extraction, and my irritation
24:41
Speaker 1: crept into my voice. Three little spots of color came
24:45
Speaker 1: into the cheeks and nose of mister Gabbatus, but his
24:48
Speaker 1: voice showed nothing of his ruffled temper. You see, I said,
24:52
Speaker 1: I'm a socialist. I don't think this world was made
24:55
Speaker 1: for a small minority to dance on the faces of
24:59
Speaker 1: every one else, my dear fellow, said the reverend Gabtus.
25:03
Speaker 1: I am a socialist too, who isn't, But that doesn't
25:06
Speaker 1: lead me to class hatred. You haven't felt the heel
25:10
Speaker 1: of this confounded system I have, ah, said he, And
25:15
Speaker 1: catching him on that note, came a rap at the
25:18
Speaker 1: front door. And as he hung suspended the sound of
25:22
Speaker 1: my mother letting some one in, and a timid rap, now,
25:26
Speaker 1: thought I and stood up resolutely. But he would not
25:30
Speaker 1: let me. No, no, no, said he. It's only for
25:33
Speaker 1: the dorcas money. He put his hand against my chest
25:37
Speaker 1: with an effect of physical compulsion, and cried, come in.
25:43
Speaker 1: Our talks just getting interesting, he protested. And there entered
25:47
Speaker 1: Miss Rammel, an elderly little young lady who is mighty
25:51
Speaker 1: in church help in Clayton. He greeted her. She took
25:55
Speaker 1: no notice of me and went to his bureau. And
25:58
Speaker 1: I remained standing by my chair, but unable to get
26:02
Speaker 1: out of the room. I'm not interrupting, asked Miss Rammel.
26:06
Speaker 1: Not in the least, he said, and drew out the
26:09
Speaker 1: carriers and opened his desk. I could not help seeing
26:12
Speaker 1: what he did. I was so fretted by my impotence
26:17
Speaker 1: to leave him that at the moment it did not
26:19
Speaker 1: connect at all with the research of the morning that
26:23
Speaker 1: he was taking out money. I listened sullenly to his
26:26
Speaker 1: talk with Miss Rammel, and saw only, as they say
26:30
Speaker 1: in Wales, with the front of my eyes, the small
26:33
Speaker 1: flat drawer that had it seemed quite a number of
26:36
Speaker 1: sovereigns scattered over its floor. They're so unreasonable, complained missus Rammel.
26:42
Speaker 1: Who could be otherwise in a social organization that bordered
26:46
Speaker 1: on insanity? I turned away from them, put my foot
26:50
Speaker 1: on the fender, stuck my elbow on the plush fringed
26:54
Speaker 1: mantel board, and studied the photographs, pipes and ashtrays that
26:58
Speaker 1: adorned it. What was it I had to think out
27:02
Speaker 1: before I went to the station. Of course, my mind
27:06
Speaker 1: made a queer, little reluctant leap. It felt like being
27:10
Speaker 1: forced to leap over a bottomless chasm, and alighted upon
27:14
Speaker 1: the sovereigns that were just disappearing again as mister Gabatus
27:18
Speaker 1: shut his drawer, I won't interrupt your talk further, said
27:22
Speaker 1: Miss Rammel, receding doorward. Mister Gabatus played round her politely
27:28
Speaker 1: and opened the door for her, and conducted her into
27:31
Speaker 1: the passage, and for a moment or so I had
27:34
Speaker 1: the fullest sense of proximity to those. It seemed to
27:38
Speaker 1: me there must be ten or twelve sovereigns. The front
27:43
Speaker 1: door closed, and he returned. My chance of escape had gone.
27:49
Speaker 1: End of Book one, Chapter four, Sections one, two and three.
27:54
Speaker 1: Recording by Richard Kilmer, Real, Medina, Texas, SA