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The Invisible Man Chapters 21-22 · The H. G. Wells Library

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