Latest / Daily Classic Sci Fi Books / 10 - The Invisible Man - H G Wells

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10 - The Invisible Man - H G Wells · Daily Classic Sci Fi Books

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