AT PORT STOWE

Ten o'clock the next morning found Mr. Marvel, unshaven, dirty, and
travel-stained, sitting with the books beside him and his hands deep
in his pockets, looking very weary, nervous, and uncomfortable, and
inflating his cheeks at infrequent intervals, on the bench outside
a little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe. Beside him were the
books, but now they were tied with string. The bundle had been
abandoned in the pine-woods beyond Bramblehurst, in accordance with
a change in the plans of the Invisible Man. Mr. Marvel sat on the
bench, and although no one took the slightest notice of him, his
agitation remained at fever heat. His hands would go ever and again
to his various pockets with a curious nervous fumbling.

When he had been sitting for the best part of an hour, however, an
elderly mariner, carrying a newspaper, came out of the inn and sat
down beside him. "Pleasant day," said the mariner.

Mr. Marvel glanced about him with something very like terror.
"Very," he said.

"Just seasonable weather for the time of year," said the mariner,
taking no denial.

"Quite," said Mr. Marvel.

The mariner produced a toothpick, and (saving his regard) was
engrossed thereby for some minutes. His eyes meanwhile were at
liberty to examine Mr. Marvel's dusty figure, and the books beside
him. As he had approached Mr. Marvel he had heard a sound like the
dropping of coins into a pocket. He was struck by the contrast of
Mr. Marvel's appearance with this suggestion of opulence. Thence
his mind wandered back again to a topic that had taken a curiously
firm hold of his imagination.

"Books?" he said suddenly, noisily finishing with the toothpick.

Mr. Marvel started and looked at them. "Oh, yes," he said. "Yes,
they're books."

"There's some extra-ordinary things in books," said the mariner.

"I believe you," said Mr. Marvel.

"And some extra-ordinary things out of 'em," said the mariner.

"True likewise," said Mr. Marvel. He eyed his interlocutor, and
then glanced about him.

"There's some extra-ordinary things in newspapers, for example,"
said the mariner.

"There are."

"In _this_ newspaper," said the mariner.

"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel.

"There's a story," said the mariner, fixing Mr. Marvel with an eye
that was firm and deliberate; "there's a story about an Invisible
Man, for instance."

Mr. Marvel pulled his mouth askew and scratched his cheek and felt
his ears glowing. "What will they be writing next?" he asked
faintly. "Ostria, or America?"

"Neither," said the mariner. "_Here_."

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, starting.

"When I say _here_," said the mariner, to Mr. Marvel's intense
relief, "I don't of course mean here in this place, I mean
hereabouts."

"An Invisible Man!" said Mr. Marvel. "And what's _he_ been up to?"

"Everything," said the mariner, controlling Marvel with his eye,
and then amplifying, "every--blessed--thing."

"I ain't seen a paper these four days," said Marvel.

"Iping's the place he started at," said the mariner.

"In-_deed_!" said Mr. Marvel.

"He started there. And where he came from, nobody don't seem to
know. Here it is: 'Pe-culiar Story from Iping.' And it says in this
paper that the evidence is extra-ordinary strong--extra-ordinary."

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel.

"But then, it's an extra-ordinary story. There is a clergyman and a
medical gent witnesses--saw 'im all right and proper--or leastways
didn't see 'im. He was staying, it says, at the 'Coach an' Horses,'
and no one don't seem to have been aware of his misfortune, it says,
aware of his misfortune, until in an Altercation in the inn, it
says, his bandages on his head was torn off. It was then ob-served
that his head was invisible. Attempts were At Once made to secure
him, but casting off his garments, it says, he succeeded in
escaping, but not until after a desperate struggle, in which he
had inflicted serious injuries, it says, on our worthy and able
constable, Mr. J. A. Jaffers. Pretty straight story, eh? Names and
everything."

"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel, looking nervously about him, trying to
count the money in his pockets by his unaided sense of touch, and
full of a strange and novel idea. "It sounds most astonishing."

"Don't it? Extra-ordinary, _I_ call it. Never heard tell of Invisible
Men before, I haven't, but nowadays one hears such a lot of
extra-ordinary things--that--"

"That all he did?" asked Marvel, trying to seem at his ease.

"It's enough, ain't it?" said the mariner.

"Didn't go Back by any chance?" asked Marvel. "Just escaped and
that's all, eh?"

"All!" said the mariner. "Why!--ain't it enough?"

"Quite enough," said Marvel.

"I should think it was enough," said the mariner. "I should think
it was enough."

"He didn't have any pals--it don't say he had any pals, does it?"
asked Mr. Marvel, anxious.

"Ain't one of a sort enough for you?" asked the mariner. "No, thank
Heaven, as one might say, he didn't."

He nodded his head slowly. "It makes me regular uncomfortable,
the bare thought of that chap running about the country! He is at
present At Large, and from certain evidence it is supposed that he
has--taken--_took_, I suppose they mean--the road to Port Stowe. You
see we're right _in_ it! None of your American wonders, this time.
And just think of the things he might do! Where'd you be, if he took
a drop over and above, and had a fancy to go for you? Suppose he
wants to rob--who can prevent him? He can trespass, he can burgle,
he could walk through a cordon of policemen as easy as me or you
could give the slip to a blind man! Easier! For these here blind
chaps hear uncommon sharp, I'm told. And wherever there was liquor
he fancied--"

"He's got a tremenjous advantage, certainly," said Mr. Marvel.
"And--well..."

"You're right," said the mariner. "He _has_."

All this time Mr. Marvel had been glancing about him intently,
listening for faint footfalls, trying to detect imperceptible
movements. He seemed on the point of some great resolution. He
coughed behind his hand.

He looked about him again, listened, bent towards the mariner, and
lowered his voice: "The fact of it is--I happen--to know just a
thing or two about this Invisible Man. From private sources."

"Oh!" said the mariner, interested. "_You_?"

"Yes," said Mr. Marvel. "Me."

"Indeed!" said the mariner. "And may I ask--"

"You'll be astonished," said Mr. Marvel behind his hand. "It's
tremenjous."

"Indeed!" said the mariner.

"The fact is," began Mr. Marvel eagerly in a confidential undertone.
Suddenly his expression changed marvellously. "Ow!" he said. He rose
stiffly in his seat. His face was eloquent of physical suffering.
"Wow!" he said.

"What's up?" said the mariner, concerned.

"Toothache," said Mr. Marvel, and put his hand to his ear. He caught
hold of his books. "I must be getting on, I think," he said. He
edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor.
"But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!"
protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself.
"Hoax," said a Voice. "It's a hoax," said Mr. Marvel.

"But it's in the paper," said the mariner.

"Hoax all the same," said Marvel. "I know the chap that started the
lie. There ain't no Invisible Man whatsoever--Blimey."

"But how 'bout this paper? D'you mean to say--?"

"Not a word of it," said Marvel, stoutly.

The mariner stared, paper in hand. Mr. Marvel jerkily faced about.
"Wait a bit," said the mariner, rising and speaking slowly, "D'you
mean to say--?"

"I do," said Mr. Marvel.

"Then why did you let me go on and tell you all this blarsted
stuff, then? What d'yer mean by letting a man make a fool of
himself like that for? Eh?"

Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks. The mariner was suddenly very red
indeed; he clenched his hands. "I been talking here this ten
minutes," he said; "and you, you little pot-bellied, leathery-faced
son of an old boot, couldn't have the elementary manners--"

"Don't you come bandying words with _me_," said Mr. Marvel.

"Bandying words! I'm a jolly good mind--"

"Come up," said a Voice, and Mr. Marvel was suddenly whirled about
and started marching off in a curious spasmodic manner. "You'd
better move on," said the mariner. "Who's moving on?" said Mr.
Marvel. He was receding obliquely with a curious hurrying gait, with
occasional violent jerks forward. Some way along the road he began
a muttered monologue, protests and recriminations.

"Silly devil!" said the mariner, legs wide apart, elbows akimbo,
watching the receding figure. "I'll show you, you silly ass--hoaxing
_me_! It's here--on the paper!"

Mr. Marvel retorted incoherently and, receding, was hidden by a bend
in the road, but the mariner still stood magnificent in the midst
of the way, until the approach of a butcher's cart dislodged him.
Then he turned himself towards Port Stowe. "Full of extra-ordinary
asses," he said softly to himself. "Just to take me down a bit--that
was his silly game--It's on the paper!"

And there was another extraordinary thing he was presently to hear,
that had happened quite close to him. And that was a vision of a
"fist full of money" (no less) travelling without visible agency,
along by the wall at the corner of St. Michael's Lane. A brother
mariner had seen this wonderful sight that very morning. He had
snatched at the money forthwith and had been knocked headlong, and
when he had got to his feet the butterfly money had vanished. Our
mariner was in the mood to believe anything, he declared, but that
was a bit _too_ stiff. Afterwards, however, he began to think things
over.

The story of the flying money was true. And all about that
neighbourhood, even from the august London and Country Banking
Company, from the tills of shops and inns--doors standing that sunny
weather entirely open--money had been quietly and dexterously making
off that day in handfuls and rouleaux, floating quietly along by
walls and shady places, dodging quickly from the approaching eyes of
men. And it had, though no man had traced it, invariably ended its
mysterious flight in the pocket of that agitated gentleman in the
obsolete silk hat, sitting outside the little inn on the outskirts
of Port Stowe.

It was ten days after--and indeed only when the Burdock story was
already old--that the mariner collated these facts and began to
understand how near he had been to the wonderful Invisible Man.

The narrator returns to Mary's house and smells cabbage cooking. The smell reminds the narrator of poverty, and he is filled with remorse for the expense he has caused Mary. He realizes he should have accepted Brother Jack's job offer so he could pay her. Mary has been kind to him, and he has repaid her by creating more debt. He pulls out Brother Jack's number and calls. In moments, a car arrives for the narrator. Jack and several other men are in the car. They take the narrator to a house where a party is evidently taking place. A woman opens the door and invites them inside. Another woman named Emma serves them a drink. Jack and Emma discuss the narrator as a hero of the people. Moments later the narrator overhears Emma questioning Jack as to whether he thinks the new speaker should be "blacker." Jack reminds her that they are concerned with his voice and not his looks. The narrator is angered by what he has overheard. He walks over to a window and looks down at the street, wondering what the woman wants from him. Brother Jack approaches him at the window and asks him to join in a meeting in the library. The narrator is told the organization has been formed to work for a better world. Jack asks him if he wants to be the next Booker T. Washington. The narrator does not know how to respond. He does, however, ask when he should begin work. They tell him to show up the next day. They also inform him to leave Mary's house and stop writing home, for he must become very private. In addition, he is handed a paper with a name written on it that is to be his new identity; he is told to answer only to his new name in the future. They give him money to pay his debt at Mary's and tell him that they will pay him a salary of sixty dollars per week. He can hardly believe his good fortune. Back in the main room of the social gathering, a man calls the narrator, asking him to sing a gospel. Brother Jack snaps at the man and tells him that he does not sing. The narrator laughs out of control, until others in the room break the tension with laughter as well. A woman then apologizes for the drunken man's behavior. He feels confused as to why everyone thought the man was wrong to ask him to sing. His thoughts are interrupted when Emma asks him to dance. He goes to the dance floor with her as if he is not surprised to be dancing with a white woman; but his mind is racing with the implications and the newness of the situation. Later, at Mary's house, he realizes he cannot face her to tell her he is leaving her. He decides to simply disappear; since he has a new identity, he will leave everything old behind.


THE MAN WHO WAS RUNNING

In the early evening time Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in the
belvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant little
room, with three windows--north, west, and south--and bookshelves
covered with books and scientific publications, and a broad
writing-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glass
slips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of
reagents. Dr. Kemp's solar lamp was lit, albeit the sky was still
bright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because there
was no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down.
Dr. Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and a
moustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, he
hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he think
of it.

And his eye, presently wandering from his work, caught the sunset
blazing at the back of the hill that is over against his own. For a
minute perhaps he sat, pen in mouth, admiring the rich golden
colour above the crest, and then his attention was attracted by the
little figure of a man, inky black, running over the hill-brow
towards him. He was a shortish little man, and he wore a high hat,
and he was running so fast that his legs verily twinkled.

"Another of those fools," said Dr. Kemp. "Like that ass who ran
into me this morning round a corner, with the ''Visible Man
a-coming, sir!' I can't imagine what possesses people. One might
think we were in the thirteenth century."

He got up, went to the window, and stared at the dusky hillside, and
the dark little figure tearing down it. "He seems in a confounded
hurry," said Dr. Kemp, "but he doesn't seem to be getting on. If
his pockets were full of lead, he couldn't run heavier."

"Spurted, sir," said Dr. Kemp.

In another moment the higher of the villas that had clambered up the
hill from Burdock had occulted the running figure. He was visible
again for a moment, and again, and then again, three times between
the three detached houses that came next, and then the terrace hid
him.

"Asses!" said Dr. Kemp, swinging round on his heel and walking
back to his writing-table.

But those who saw the fugitive nearer, and perceived the abject
terror on his perspiring face, being themselves in the open roadway,
did not share in the doctor's contempt. By the man pounded, and as
he ran he chinked like a well-filled purse that is tossed to and
fro. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but his dilated
eyes stared straight downhill to where the lamps were being lit, and
the people were crowded in the street. And his ill-shaped mouth fell
apart, and a glairy foam lay on his lips, and his breath came hoarse
and noisy. All he passed stopped and began staring up the road and
down, and interrogating one another with an inkling of discomfort
for the reason of his haste.

And then presently, far up the hill, a dog playing in the road
yelped and ran under a gate, and as they still wondered
something--a wind--a pad, pad, pad,--a sound like a panting breathing,
rushed by.

People screamed. People sprang off the pavement: It passed in
shouts, it passed by instinct down the hill. They were shouting in
the street before Marvel was halfway there. They were bolting into
houses and slamming the doors behind them, with the news. He heard
it and made one last desperate spurt. Fear came striding by, rushed
ahead of him, and in a moment had seized the town.

"The Invisible Man is coming! The Invisible Man!"

The narrator is awakened upon his last day at Mary's by a loud noise and a headache. He thinks about things that bother him. He is irritated by the loudness of the people on the street below. He is also bothered by a coin bank in the shape of a black man. He feels annoyed that Mary owns such a thing. In irritation, he drops the bank and breaks it. Mary knocks on the door, and he wonders where he will hide the broken bank. He puts it in his briefcase. The narrator goes down to the kitchen for coffee and tries to get Mary's attention in order to give her the money he owes her. When he succeeds, she asks if he has a job. He lies and says no, explaining that he won the money by gambling. After breakfast, he says he has to go out for the morning and says good-bye. He grabs his leather briefcase from his closet. On his way out the door, he pauses and pulls out the piece of paper Jack has given him. He looks at his new identity before walking away from Mary's house forever. Walking down the street, the briefcase hits his leg, and its heaviness reminds him of the broken bank inside. He wants to get rid of it immediately, so he throws it into a trash can. A woman comes out of her house and tells him to take his trash back. She also calls him some derogatory names for being from the South. He threatens her, but picks the bank up and continues walking. Finally, he drops the bank in the snow and thinks his problem is solved. A man approaches him two blocks later, returning the bank. The man accuses him of being a drug peddler. After an angry exchange of words, the narrator realizes he cannot drop the bank again, because the man and other men are watching him. He decides to carry the bank downtown, where he can surely get rid of it. At the subway, he sees the headlines on the paper about the eviction of the day before. Before calling on Jack, the narrator goes shopping and buys himself a new suit. When he arrives at Jack's, he is sent to his new apartment and given literature in order to prepare for the evening's rally. He is welcomed into his new apartment by a woman and is amazed at the size of the place. The first thing he decides to do is draw himself a bath, thinking he will dispose of the smashed bank later.


IN THE "JOLLY CRICKETERS"

The "Jolly Cricketers" is just at the bottom of the hill, where the
tram-lines begin. The barman leant his fat red arms on the counter
and talked of horses with an anaemic cabman, while a black-bearded
man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton, and
conversed in American with a policeman off duty.

"What's the shouting about!" said the anaemic cabman, going off at a
tangent, trying to see up the hill over the dirty yellow blind in
the low window of the inn. Somebody ran by outside. "Fire, perhaps,"
said the barman.

Footsteps approached, running heavily, the door was pushed open
violently, and Marvel, weeping and dishevelled, his hat gone, the
neck of his coat torn open, rushed in, made a convulsive turn, and
attempted to shut the door. It was held half open by a strap.

"Coming!" he bawled, his voice shrieking with terror. "He's coming.
The 'Visible Man! After me! For Gawd's sake! 'Elp! 'Elp! 'Elp!"

"Shut the doors," said the policeman. "Who's coming? What's the
row?" He went to the door, released the strap, and it slammed. The
American closed the other door.

"Lemme go inside," said Marvel, staggering and weeping, but still
clutching the books. "Lemme go inside. Lock me in--somewhere. I
tell you he's after me. I give him the slip. He said he'd kill me
and he will."

"_You're_ safe," said the man with the black beard. "The door's shut.
What's it all about?"

"Lemme go inside," said Marvel, and shrieked aloud as a blow
suddenly made the fastened door shiver and was followed by a hurried
rapping and a shouting outside. "Hullo," cried the policeman, "who's
there?" Mr. Marvel began to make frantic dives at panels that looked
like doors. "He'll kill me--he's got a knife or something. For
Gawd's sake--!"

"Here you are," said the barman. "Come in here." And he held up the
flap of the bar.

Mr. Marvel rushed behind the bar as the summons outside was
repeated. "Don't open the door," he screamed. "_Please_ don't open
the door. _Where_ shall I hide?"

"This, this Invisible Man, then?" asked the man with the black
beard, with one hand behind him. "I guess it's about time we saw
him."

The window of the inn was suddenly smashed in, and there was a
screaming and running to and fro in the street. The policeman had
been standing on the settee staring out, craning to see who was at
the door. He got down with raised eyebrows. "It's that," he said.
The barman stood in front of the bar-parlour door which was now
locked on Mr. Marvel, stared at the smashed window, and came round
to the two other men.

Everything was suddenly quiet. "I wish I had my truncheon," said
the policeman, going irresolutely to the door. "Once we open, in he
comes. There's no stopping him."

"Don't you be in too much hurry about that door," said the anaemic
cabman, anxiously.

"Draw the bolts," said the man with the black beard, "and if he
comes--" He showed a revolver in his hand.

"That won't do," said the policeman; "that's murder."

"I know what country I'm in," said the man with the beard. "I'm
going to let off at his legs. Draw the bolts."

"Not with that blinking thing going off behind me," said the
barman, craning over the blind.

"Very well," said the man with the black beard, and stooping down,
revolver ready, drew them himself. Barman, cabman, and policeman
faced about.

"Come in," said the bearded man in an undertone, standing back and
facing the unbolted doors with his pistol behind him. No one came
in, the door remained closed. Five minutes afterwards when a second
cabman pushed his head in cautiously, they were still waiting, and
an anxious face peered out of the bar-parlour and supplied
information. "Are all the doors of the house shut?" asked Marvel.
"He's going round--prowling round. He's as artful as the devil."

"Good Lord!" said the burly barman. "There's the back! Just watch
them doors! I say--!" He looked about him helplessly. The
bar-parlour door slammed and they heard the key turn. "There's
the yard door and the private door. The yard door--"

He rushed out of the bar.

In a minute he reappeared with a carving-knife in his hand. "The
yard door was open!" he said, and his fat underlip dropped. "He may
be in the house now!" said the first cabman.

"He's not in the kitchen," said the barman. "There's two women
there, and I've stabbed every inch of it with this little beef
slicer. And they don't think he's come in. They haven't noticed--"

"Have you fastened it?" asked the first cabman.

"I'm out of frocks," said the barman.

The man with the beard replaced his revolver. And even as he did so
the flap of the bar was shut down and the bolt clicked, and then
with a tremendous thud the catch of the door snapped and the
bar-parlour door burst open. They heard Marvel squeal like a caught
leveret, and forthwith they were clambering over the bar to his
rescue. The bearded man's revolver cracked and the looking-glass at
the back of the parlour starred and came smashing and tinkling down.

As the barman entered the room he saw Marvel, curiously crumpled up
and struggling against the door that led to the yard and kitchen.
The door flew open while the barman hesitated, and Marvel was
dragged into the kitchen. There was a scream and a clatter of pans.
Marvel, head down, and lugging back obstinately, was forced to the
kitchen door, and the bolts were drawn.

Then the policeman, who had been trying to pass the barman, rushed
in, followed by one of the cabmen, gripped the wrist of the
invisible hand that collared Marvel, was hit in the face and went
reeling back. The door opened, and Marvel made a frantic effort to
obtain a lodgment behind it. Then the cabman collared something.
"I got him," said the cabman. The barman's red hands came clawing
at the unseen. "Here he is!" said the barman.

Mr. Marvel, released, suddenly dropped to the ground and made an
attempt to crawl behind the legs of the fighting men. The struggle
blundered round the edge of the door. The voice of the Invisible
Man was heard for the first time, yelling out sharply, as the
policeman trod on his foot. Then he cried out passionately and
his fists flew round like flails. The cabman suddenly whooped
and doubled up, kicked under the diaphragm. The door into the
bar-parlour from the kitchen slammed and covered Mr. Marvel's
retreat. The men in the kitchen found themselves clutching at and
struggling with empty air.

"Where's he gone?" cried the man with the beard. "Out?"

"This way," said the policeman, stepping into the yard and
stopping.

A piece of tile whizzed by his head and smashed among the crockery
on the kitchen table.

"I'll show him," shouted the man with the black beard, and suddenly
a steel barrel shone over the policeman's shoulder, and five
bullets had followed one another into the twilight whence the
missile had come. As he fired, the man with the beard moved his
hand in a horizontal curve, so that his shots radiated out into the
narrow yard like spokes from a wheel.

A silence followed. "Five cartridges," said the man with the black
beard. "That's the best of all. Four aces and a joker. Get a
lantern, someone, and come and feel about for his body."

Jack and the members of the Brotherhood introduce the narrator to a life he has been totally unacquainted with. They pick him up and drive him around to give speeches he does not fully understand and espouse values he is not entirely sure of. In this chapter, Jack and the Brotherhood take him to give a speech but tell him to wait until the crowd is at the height of impatience. Other men gather and talk in the crowded room. The narrator looks at a photograph of a champion boxer, blinded from fighting in the very arena in which he now stands. He remembers his father telling him the story of the fighter. He takes a seat, feeling sad. He begins to get anxious, worried that the crowd will resent him for speaking so late and making them wait. He has no choice but to trust the Brotherhood. The narrator worries that he may forget his new identity. He feels divided between his old self and his new self, and more than a little bewildered by the present. He wonders if delivering the speech and receiving the attention it brings will be enough to mold his new self instantly. Once on stage, the narrator is blinded by the spotlight and bumps into the men in front of him. The crowd begins singing a song, and he is afraid the police in the audience will recognize him. Jack assures him that the police are present for their protection only, because they are holding a political rally. The crowd begins chanting and speakers go to the podium one by one. Finally, it is his turn to speak. He has trouble adjusting to the microphone, having never used one before. He still delivers a powerful speech on dispossession. At some point there is a natural pause in his speech and the audience applauds wildly. He is not sure how to proceed. Jack pretends to adjust the microphone for him and warns him to be careful about proceeding into his personal life too much. He reminds the narrator that he is not an individual, but the voice for the larger group. As his speech ends, the crowd claps fanatically. Jack jumps to congratulate him, and others come from every direction to kiss him, hug him, slap him on the back, and thank him. Brother Jack cannot stop celebrating, until another brother with a pipe begins to complain loudly about the speech. The man, Brother Wrestrum, feels the narrator is reactionary and dangerous. He feels the people should be helped to understand their goals intellectually, not stirred so wildly emotionally. Jack announces that he has already planned for the new speechmaker to be trained by Brother Hambro. The narrator is told that he will receive his regular salary, but he is to stay out of Harlem and study for a while. The narrator goes home, takes a shower, and goes to bed, but he is unable to sleep. He thinks back over his speech and feels as if someone else delivered it. He begins to wonder what exactly is meant by some of the things that he had said. He is perplexed by the statement that he was becoming more human. He does feel, however, that he is doing more than he or Bledsoe or Norton ever dreamed he would do. For the first time, he feels as if he is more than just a member of a "race." The irony is that he understands very little about what he is doing, who the Brotherhood is, and what their ideas mean. He certainly does not know who he is even though he has been given a purpose and an identity. For the time being, those things blind him to the things he does not know.


DR. KEMP'S VISITOR

Dr. Kemp had continued writing in his study until the shots
aroused him. Crack, crack, crack, they came one after the other.

"Hullo!" said Dr. Kemp, putting his pen into his mouth again and
listening. "Who's letting off revolvers in Burdock? What are the
asses at now?"

He went to the south window, threw it up, and leaning out stared
down on the network of windows, beaded gas-lamps and shops, with its
black interstices of roof and yard that made up the town at night.
"Looks like a crowd down the hill," he said, "by 'The Cricketers,'"
and remained watching. Thence his eyes wandered over the town to far
away where the ships' lights shone, and the pier glowed--a little
illuminated, facetted pavilion like a gem of yellow light. The moon
in its first quarter hung over the westward hill, and the stars were
clear and almost tropically bright.

After five minutes, during which his mind had travelled into a
remote speculation of social conditions of the future, and lost
itself at last over the time dimension, Dr. Kemp roused himself
with a sigh, pulled down the window again, and returned to his
writing desk.

It must have been about an hour after this that the front-door bell
rang. He had been writing slackly, and with intervals of
abstraction, since the shots. He sat listening. He heard the servant
answer the door, and waited for her feet on the staircase, but she
did not come. "Wonder what that was," said Dr. Kemp.

He tried to resume his work, failed, got up, went downstairs from
his study to the landing, rang, and called over the balustrade to
the housemaid as she appeared in the hall below. "Was that a
letter?" he asked.

"Only a runaway ring, sir," she answered.

"I'm restless to-night," he said to himself. He went back to his
study, and this time attacked his work resolutely. In a little
while he was hard at work again, and the only sounds in the room
were the ticking of the clock and the subdued shrillness of his
quill, hurrying in the very centre of the circle of light his
lampshade threw on his table.

It was two o'clock before Dr. Kemp had finished his work for the
night. He rose, yawned, and went downstairs to bed. He had already
removed his coat and vest, when he noticed that he was thirsty. He
took a candle and went down to the dining-room in search of a
syphon and whiskey.

Dr. Kemp's scientific pursuits have made him a very observant
man, and as he recrossed the hall, he noticed a dark spot on the
linoleum near the mat at the foot of the stairs. He went on
upstairs, and then it suddenly occurred to him to ask himself what
the spot on the linoleum might be. Apparently some subconscious
element was at work. At any rate, he turned with his burden, went
back to the hall, put down the syphon and whiskey, and bending
down, touched the spot. Without any great surprise he found it had
the stickiness and colour of drying blood.

He took up his burden again, and returned upstairs, looking about
him and trying to account for the blood-spot. On the landing he saw
something and stopped astonished. The door-handle of his own room
was blood-stained.

He looked at his own hand. It was quite clean, and then he
remembered that the door of his room had been open when he came down
from his study, and that consequently he had not touched the handle
at all. He went straight into his room, his face quite calm--perhaps
a trifle more resolute than usual. His glance, wandering
inquisitively, fell on the bed. On the counterpane was a mess of
blood, and the sheet had been torn. He had not noticed this before
because he had walked straight to the dressing-table. On the further
side the bedclothes were depressed as if someone had been recently
sitting there.

Then he had an odd impression that he had heard a low voice say,
"Good Heavens!--Kemp!" But Dr. Kemp was no believer in voices.

He stood staring at the tumbled sheets. Was that really a voice? He
looked about again, but noticed nothing further than the disordered
and blood-stained bed. Then he distinctly heard a movement across
the room, near the wash-hand stand. All men, however highly
educated, retain some superstitious inklings. The feeling that is
called "eerie" came upon him. He closed the door of the room, came
forward to the dressing-table, and put down his burdens. Suddenly,
with a start, he perceived a coiled and blood-stained bandage of
linen rag hanging in mid-air, between him and the wash-hand stand.

He stared at this in amazement. It was an empty bandage, a bandage
properly tied but quite empty. He would have advanced to grasp it,
but a touch arrested him, and a voice speaking quite close to him.

"Kemp!" said the Voice.

"Eh?" said Kemp, with his mouth open.

"Keep your nerve," said the Voice. "I'm an Invisible Man."

Kemp made no answer for a space, simply stared at the bandage.
"Invisible Man," he said.

"I am an Invisible Man," repeated the Voice.

The story he had been active to ridicule only that morning rushed
through Kemp's brain. He does not appear to have been either very
much frightened or very greatly surprised at the moment.
Realisation came later.

"I thought it was all a lie," he said. The thought uppermost in his
mind was the reiterated arguments of the morning. "Have you a
bandage on?" he asked.

"Yes," said the Invisible Man.

"Oh!" said Kemp, and then roused himself. "I say!" he said. "But
this is nonsense. It's some trick." He stepped forward suddenly,
and his hand, extended towards the bandage, met invisible fingers.

He recoiled at the touch and his colour changed.

"Keep steady, Kemp, for God's sake! I want help badly. Stop!"

The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it.

"Kemp!" cried the Voice. "Kemp! Keep steady!" and the grip
tightened.

A frantic desire to free himself took possession of Kemp. The hand
of the bandaged arm gripped his shoulder, and he was suddenly
tripped and flung backwards upon the bed. He opened his mouth to
shout, and the corner of the sheet was thrust between his teeth.
The Invisible Man had him down grimly, but his arms were free and
he struck and tried to kick savagely.

"Listen to reason, will you?" said the Invisible Man, sticking to
him in spite of a pounding in the ribs. "By Heaven! you'll madden
me in a minute!

"Lie still, you fool!" bawled the Invisible Man in Kemp's ear.

Kemp struggled for another moment and then lay still.

"If you shout, I'll smash your face," said the Invisible Man,
relieving his mouth.

"I'm an Invisible Man. It's no foolishness, and no magic. I really
am an Invisible Man. And I want your help. I don't want to hurt
you, but if you behave like a frantic rustic, I must. Don't you
remember me, Kemp? Griffin, of University College?"

"Let me get up," said Kemp. "I'll stop where I am. And let me sit
quiet for a minute."

He sat up and felt his neck.

"I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself
invisible. I am just an ordinary man--a man you have known--made
invisible."

"Griffin?" said Kemp.

"Griffin," answered the Voice. A younger student than you were,
almost an albino, six feet high, and broad, with a pink and white
face and red eyes, who won the medal for chemistry."

"I am confused," said Kemp. "My brain is rioting. What has this to
do with Griffin?"

"I _am_ Griffin."

Kemp thought. "It's horrible," he said. "But what devilry must
happen to make a man invisible?"

"It's no devilry. It's a process, sane and intelligible enough--"

"It's horrible!" said Kemp. "How on earth--?"

"It's horrible enough. But I'm wounded and in pain, and tired ...
Great God! Kemp, you are a man. Take it steady. Give me some food
and drink, and let me sit down here."

Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a
basket chair dragged across the floor and come to rest near the bed.
It creaked, and the seat was depressed the quarter of an inch or so.
He rubbed his eyes and felt his neck again. "This beats ghosts," he
said, and laughed stupidly.

"That's better. Thank Heaven, you're getting sensible!"

"Or silly," said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes.

"Give me some whiskey. I'm near dead."

"It didn't feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into you?
_There_! all right. Whiskey? Here. Where shall I give it to you?"

The chair creaked and Kemp felt the glass drawn away from him. He
let go by an effort; his instinct was all against it. It came to
rest poised twenty inches above the front edge of the seat of the
chair. He stared at it in infinite perplexity. "This is--this
must be--hypnotism. You have suggested you are invisible."

"Nonsense," said the Voice.

"It's frantic."

"Listen to me."

"I demonstrated conclusively this morning," began Kemp, "that
invisibility--"

"Never mind what you've demonstrated!--I'm starving," said the
Voice, "and the night is chilly to a man without clothes."

"Food?" said Kemp.

The tumbler of whiskey tilted itself. "Yes," said the Invisible Man
rapping it down. "Have you a dressing-gown?"

Kemp made some exclamation in an undertone. He walked to a wardrobe
and produced a robe of dingy scarlet. "This do?" he asked. It was
taken from him. It hung limp for a moment in mid-air, fluttered
weirdly, stood full and decorous buttoning itself, and sat down in
his chair. "Drawers, socks, slippers would be a comfort," said the
Unseen, curtly. "And food."

"Anything. But this is the insanest thing I ever was in, in my
life!"

He turned out his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs
to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and
bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest.
"Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air,
with a sound of gnawing.

"Invisible!" said Kemp, and sat down on a bedroom chair.

"I always like to get something about me before I eat," said the
Invisible Man, with a full mouth, eating greedily. "Queer fancy!"

"I suppose that wrist is all right," said Kemp.

"Trust me," said the Invisible Man.

"Of all the strange and wonderful--"

"Exactly. But it's odd I should blunder into _your_ house to get my
bandaging. My first stroke of luck! Anyhow I meant to sleep in this
house to-night. You must stand that! It's a filthy nuisance, my
blood showing, isn't it? Quite a clot over there. Gets visible as
it coagulates, I see. It's only the living tissue I've changed, and
only for as long as I'm alive.... I've been in the house three hours."

"But how's it done?" began Kemp, in a tone of exasperation.
"Confound it! The whole business--it's unreasonable from
beginning to end."

"Quite reasonable," said the Invisible Man. "Perfectly reasonable."

He reached over and secured the whiskey bottle. Kemp stared at the
devouring dressing gown. A ray of candle-light penetrating a torn
patch in the right shoulder, made a triangle of light under the
left ribs. "What were the shots?" he asked. "How did the shooting
begin?"

"There was a real fool of a man--a sort of confederate of
mine--curse him!--who tried to steal my money. _Has_ done so."

"Is _he_ invisible too?"

"No."

"Well?"

"Can't I have some more to eat before I tell you all that? I'm
hungry--in pain. And you want me to tell stories!"

Kemp got up. "_You_ didn't do any shooting?" he asked.

"Not me," said his visitor. "Some fool I'd never seen fired at
random. A lot of them got scared. They all got scared at me. Curse
them!--I say--I want more to eat than this, Kemp."

"I'll see what there is to eat downstairs," said Kemp. "Not much,
I'm afraid."

After he had done eating, and he made a heavy meal, the Invisible
Man demanded a cigar. He bit the end savagely before Kemp could
find a knife, and cursed when the outer leaf loosened. It was
strange to see him smoking; his mouth, and throat, pharynx and
nares, became visible as a sort of whirling smoke cast.

"This blessed gift of smoking!" he said, and puffed vigorously.
"I'm lucky to have fallen upon you, Kemp. You must help me. Fancy
tumbling on you just now! I'm in a devilish scrape--I've been mad,
I think. The things I have been through! But we will do things yet.
Let me tell you--"

He helped himself to more whiskey and soda. Kemp got up, looked
about him, and fetched a glass from his spare room. "It's wild--but
I suppose I may drink."

"You haven't changed much, Kemp, these dozen years. You fair men
don't. Cool and methodical--after the first collapse. I must tell
you. We will work together!"

"But how was it all done?" said Kemp, "and how did you get like
this?"

"For God's sake, let me smoke in peace for a little while! And then
I will begin to tell you."

But the story was not told that night. The Invisible Man's wrist
was growing painful; he was feverish, exhausted, and his mind came
round to brood upon his chase down the hill and the struggle about
the inn. He spoke in fragments of Marvel, he smoked faster, his
voice grew angry. Kemp tried to gather what he could.

"He was afraid of me, I could see that he was afraid of me," said
the Invisible Man many times over. "He meant to give me the slip--he
was always casting about! What a fool I was!

"The cur!

"I should have killed him!"

"Where did you get the money?" asked Kemp, abruptly.

The Invisible Man was silent for a space. "I can't tell you
to-night," he said.

He groaned suddenly and leant forward, supporting his invisible
head on invisible hands. "Kemp," he said, "I've had no sleep for
near three days, except a couple of dozes of an hour or so. I
must sleep soon."

"Well, have my room--have this room."

"But how can I sleep? If I sleep--he will get away. Ugh! What
does it matter?"

"What's the shot wound?" asked Kemp, abruptly.

"Nothing--scratch and blood. Oh, God! How I want sleep!"

"Why not?"

The Invisible Man appeared to be regarding Kemp. "Because I've a
particular objection to being caught by my fellow-men," he said
slowly.

Kemp started.

"Fool that I am!" said the Invisible Man, striking the table
smartly. "I've put the idea into your head."

After four months of study, Jack takes him to Harlem. However, instead of delivering speeches, he is taken out for drinks. The lack of activity bothers the narrator, who longs for another chance at glory. He studies more than ever, preparing for the next speech. Jack informs the narrator that he has been voted spokesperson for the Harlem district. He is advised to keep the people stirred up and active. He will be provided with guidance and orders. Jack explains that he has freedom to operate within the guidelines of the organization. He tells him that he will have an appointment with the executive committee of the Harlem section the next day at nine. Jack then takes him to the location of his new office. They are met at the door by Brother Tarp. The next morning, the narrator arrives on time. He is announced as the new spokesperson just as Brother Clifton arrives late. At first, the narrator is threatened by the handsome young man, thinking he is a rival for his position. Clifton explains his tardiness by saying he was seeing a doctor to treat his wounds from an encounter with Ras the Exhorter and his nationalists. In the meeting the narrator suggests that they focus on the eviction issue in the community by getting the support of local officials. Brother Clifton supports his idea. Then, he suggests taking the speeches to the streets like Ras does. The committee agrees but reminds Clifton of the non-violence rule of the group. Jack leaves, and Clifton and the narrator go over plans for street speeches. The narrator looks around the room to observe everyone and try to figure them out. He cannot, deciding they are too different, too fluid. He decides that he too is different and changes all the time. He decides he should not make anyone angry, since he is to be the new leader. Outside, the narrator is surrounded by a crowd of people anxious to hear him speak. Clifton's youth division of the Brotherhood surrounds him. Ras the Exhorter and his violent gang of activists show up and begin to fight. The narrator is hit in the head and falls. He sees Ras pull a knife on Clifton but stop in mid-air. Ras lets Clifton go because he is black. Ras tries to convince Clifton and the narrator that they are traitors to the black people by helping ex-slave holders and calling them brothers, for there are white men in the Brotherhood. Ras goes on to explain that white men will only call them brothers long enough to achieve their goals. He pleads with them to believe him, even moved to tears. The narrator responds carefully, telling Ras they will not go away, and they want no more trouble with him or his nationalists. Clifton and the narrator leave, talking as they go about how Jack will respond to the violence, which is strictly against Brotherhood policy. Clifton halfway admits to believing some of Ras' philosophy, revealing that he sometimes feels he has turned his back on the black people in some manner. He tells the narrator he does not know any other way of fighting for his cause, revealing that if he allowed himself to get as angry as Ras, he might lose control and kill someone. The narrator is mostly silent, finally saying he is glad the Brotherhood can help them fight for their cause.


THE INVISIBLE MAN SLEEPS

Exhausted and wounded as the Invisible Man was, he refused to accept
Kemp's word that his freedom should be respected. He examined the
two windows of the bedroom, drew up the blinds and opened the
sashes, to confirm Kemp's statement that a retreat by them would be
possible. Outside the night was very quiet and still, and the new
moon was setting over the down. Then he examined the keys of the
bedroom and the two dressing-room doors, to satisfy himself that
these also could be made an assurance of freedom. Finally he
expressed himself satisfied. He stood on the hearth rug and Kemp
heard the sound of a yawn.

"I'm sorry," said the Invisible Man, "if I cannot tell you all that
I have done to-night. But I am worn out. It's grotesque, no doubt.
It's horrible! But believe me, Kemp, in spite of your arguments of
this morning, it is quite a possible thing. I have made a discovery.
I meant to keep it to myself. I can't. I must have a partner. And
you.... We can do such things ... But to-morrow. Now, Kemp, I feel
as though I must sleep or perish."

Kemp stood in the middle of the room staring at the headless garment.
"I suppose I must leave you," he said. "It's--incredible. Three
things happening like this, overturning all my preconceptions--would
make me insane. But it's real! Is there anything more that I can
get you?"

"Only bid me good-night," said Griffin.

"Good-night," said Kemp, and shook an invisible hand. He walked
sideways to the door. Suddenly the dressing-gown walked quickly
towards him. "Understand me!" said the dressing-gown. "No attempts
to hamper me, or capture me! Or--"

Kemp's face changed a little. "I thought I gave you my word," he
said.

Kemp closed the door softly behind him, and the key was turned upon
him forthwith. Then, as he stood with an expression of passive
amazement on his face, the rapid feet came to the door of the
dressing-room and that too was locked. Kemp slapped his brow with
his hand. "Am I dreaming? Has the world gone mad--or have I?"

He laughed, and put his hand to the locked door. "Barred out of my
own bedroom, by a flagrant absurdity!" he said.

He walked to the head of the staircase, turned, and stared at the
locked doors. "It's fact," he said. He put his fingers to his
slightly bruised neck. "Undeniable fact!

"But--"

He shook his head hopelessly, turned, and went downstairs.

He lit the dining-room lamp, got out a cigar, and began pacing the
room, ejaculating. Now and then he would argue with himself.

"Invisible!" he said.

"Is there such a thing as an invisible animal? ... In the sea, yes.
Thousands--millions. All the larvae, all the little nauplii and
tornarias, all the microscopic things, the jelly-fish. In the sea
there are more things invisible than visible! I never thought of
that before. And in the ponds too! All those little pond-life
things--specks of colourless translucent jelly! But in air? No!

"It can't be.

"But after all--why not?

"If a man was made of glass he would still be visible."

His meditation became profound. The bulk of three cigars had passed
into the invisible or diffused as a white ash over the carpet before
he spoke again. Then it was merely an exclamation. He turned aside,
walked out of the room, and went into his little consulting-room and
lit the gas there. It was a little room, because Dr. Kemp did not
live by practice, and in it were the day's newspapers. The morning's
paper lay carelessly opened and thrown aside. He caught it up,
turned it over, and read the account of a "Strange Story from Iping"
that the mariner at Port Stowe had spelt over so painfully to Mr.
Marvel. Kemp read it swiftly.

"Wrapped up!" said Kemp. "Disguised! Hiding it! 'No one seems to
have been aware of his misfortune.' What the devil _is_ his game?"

He dropped the paper, and his eye went seeking. "Ah!" he said, and
caught up the _St. James' Gazette_, lying folded up as it arrived.
"Now we shall get at the truth," said Dr. Kemp. He rent the paper
open; a couple of columns confronted him. "An Entire Village in
Sussex goes Mad" was the heading.

"Good Heavens!" said Kemp, reading eagerly an incredulous account
of the events in Iping, of the previous afternoon, that have
already been described. Over the leaf the report in the morning
paper had been reprinted.

He re-read it. "Ran through the streets striking right and left.
Jaffers insensible. Mr. Huxter in great pain--still unable to
describe what he saw. Painful humiliation--vicar. Woman ill with
terror! Windows smashed. This extraordinary story probably a
fabrication. Too good not to print--_cum grano_!"

He dropped the paper and stared blankly in front of him. "Probably
a fabrication!"

He caught up the paper again, and re-read the whole business. "But
when does the Tramp come in? Why the deuce was he chasing a tramp?"

He sat down abruptly on the surgical bench. "He's not only
invisible," he said, "but he's mad! Homicidal!"

When dawn came to mingle its pallor with the lamp-light and cigar
smoke of the dining-room, Kemp was still pacing up and down, trying
to grasp the incredible.

He was altogether too excited to sleep. His servants, descending
sleepily, discovered him, and were inclined to think that
over-study had worked this ill on him. He gave them extraordinary
but quite explicit instructions to lay breakfast for two in the
belvedere study--and then to confine themselves to the basement
and ground-floor. Then he continued to pace the dining-room until
the morning's paper came. That had much to say and little to tell,
beyond the confirmation of the evening before, and a very badly
written account of another remarkable tale from Port Burdock. This
gave Kemp the essence of the happenings at the "Jolly Cricketers,"
and the name of Marvel. "He has made me keep with him twenty-four
hours," Marvel testified. Certain minor facts were added to the
Iping story, notably the cutting of the village telegraph-wire.
But there was nothing to throw light on the connexion between
the Invisible Man and the Tramp; for Mr. Marvel had supplied no
information about the three books, or the money with which he was
lined. The incredulous tone had vanished and a shoal of reporters
and inquirers were already at work elaborating the matter.

Kemp read every scrap of the report and sent his housemaid out to
get every one of the morning papers she could. These also he
devoured.

"He is invisible!" he said. "And it reads like rage growing to
mania! The things he may do! The things he may do! And he's
upstairs free as the air. What on earth ought I to do?"

"For instance, would it be a breach of faith if--? No."

He went to a little untidy desk in the corner, and began a note. He
tore this up half written, and wrote another. He read it over and
considered it. Then he took an envelope and addressed it to "Colonel
Adye, Port Burdock."

The Invisible Man awoke even as Kemp was doing this. He awoke in an
evil temper, and Kemp, alert for every sound, heard his pattering
feet rush suddenly across the bedroom overhead. Then a chair was
flung over and the wash-hand stand tumbler smashed. Kemp hurried
upstairs and rapped eagerly.

One day the narrator receives an anonymous letter warning him to back off in the Brotherhood or the white men in the Brotherhood will remove him. The narrator is upset and confused by the letter and cannot find out who wrote it. He is told by Brother Tarp not to worry; as long as a few support him, he will still be able to do his work. Tarp then tells the narrator about his lame leg. For nineteen years, he dragged a chain on that leg because he would not let some one take something that was his. He finally broke the chain and escaped. Tarp pulls out the link of chain he broke to free himself and gives it to the narrator as a reminder of why they are fighting for the blacks. The narrator slips the link around his finger up and hits the letter on the desk. He does not want the link, but feels obligated to accept it, like a son would accept an out-of-date watch from his father. Brother Wrestrum enters the office and slouches down into a chair, looking nervously over the narrator's desk. The narrator feels he is a snoop and does not know his true function in the Brotherhood. He only understands that Wrestrum has some amount of power within the organization. Wrestrum asks about the link on the desk. When the narrator explains what it is, he tells him he should not display such things, because it points out people's differences. He says that those differences are what the Brotherhood is fighting against. Wrestrum goes on to explain how those in the Brotherhood must watch themselves and get rid of anything that does not make for a Brotherhood. The narrator begins to wonder if Wrestrum wrote the letter. He pulls the letter out, playing with it, and drops it on top of the link. Wrestrum looks at it, but shows no recognition. The narrator is disappointed not to have found the author. Wrestrum warns the narrator that not everyone in the Brotherhood believes in the Brotherhood. The narrator is horrified by the idea that anyone would be forced to shake his hand or call him brother. Wrestrum explains how he seeks to find whatever is in him that is against the Brotherhood and expel it from himself daily. He confesses that the most common element is resentment, but he keeps it checked and cleaned out. Wrestrum then proceeds to ask the narrator about creating some way for black brothers to recognize each other, some sort of Brotherhood emblem that they might wear. Wrestrum tells him how Clifton was in a scuffle and got confused and began beating up a white brother. He thinks that perhaps an emblem would help this problem. Their conversation is interrupted when the narrator receives a call to be interviewed as a hero for a local youth magazine. He tries to refuse, but ends up accepting. Wrestrum leaves after the phone call. About two weeks pass, and the narrator attends a meeting where Wrestrum calls a complaint on him before the committee. As he is being accused, the narrator notices a certain spark of pleasure in Jack's eyes as he scribbles on a pad. Wrestrum accuses him of being a petty individualist, sabotaging the Brotherhood by exploiting it for his own purposes. He offers the magazine article as proof, saying that the interview was arranged by the narrator to celebrate himself as an exceptional individual. The narrator denies offering anything but the standard explanation of the organization and regular literature handouts when speaking to the reporter. He is asked to step out momentarily while the committee discusses the matter. He is called back in the room and dismissed of the charges of being an enemy, but questions remain about the magazine article. The narrator is furious that the charges were made in the first place; however, the situation is explained to him in such a logical manner that he feels he must accept. A charge was made and, right or wrong, they have an obligation to investigate. Now they ask him to relocate until all charges against him may be cleared. He has been reassigned to speak on behalf of feminist issues. He is disappointed, but too ambitious to refuse relocation. He will speak on anything important for the Brotherhood as long as he can advance. The narrator decides that the relocation is an expression of the Brotherhood's unbroken faith in him. After all, he is being asked to address a taboo topic and open the Brotherhood to women. He leaves with misguided optimism.


CERTAIN FIRST PRINCIPLES

"What's the matter?" asked Kemp, when the Invisible Man admitted him.

"Nothing," was the answer.

"But, confound it! The smash?"

"Fit of temper," said the Invisible Man. "Forgot this arm; and it's
sore."

"You're rather liable to that sort of thing."

"I am."

Kemp walked across the room and picked up the fragments of broken
glass. "All the facts are out about you," said Kemp, standing up
with the glass in his hand; "all that happened in Iping, and down
the hill. The world has become aware of its invisible citizen. But
no one knows you are here."

The Invisible Man swore.

"The secret's out. I gather it was a secret. I don't know what your
plans are, but of course I'm anxious to help you."

The Invisible Man sat down on the bed.

"There's breakfast upstairs," said Kemp, speaking as easily as
possible, and he was delighted to find his strange guest rose
willingly. Kemp led the way up the narrow staircase to the
belvedere.

"Before we can do anything else," said Kemp, "I must understand a
little more about this invisibility of yours." He had sat down,
after one nervous glance out of the window, with the air of a man
who has talking to do. His doubts of the sanity of the entire
business flashed and vanished again as he looked across to
where Griffin sat at the breakfast-table--a headless, handless
dressing-gown, wiping unseen lips on a miraculously held serviette.

"It's simple enough--and credible enough," said Griffin, putting
the serviette aside and leaning the invisible head on an invisible
hand.

"No doubt, to you, but--" Kemp laughed.

"Well, yes; to me it seemed wonderful at first, no doubt. But now,
great God! ... But we will do great things yet! I came on the stuff
first at Chesilstowe."

"Chesilstowe?"

"I went there after I left London. You know I dropped medicine and
took up physics? No; well, I did. _Light_ fascinated me."

"Ah!"

"Optical density! The whole subject is a network of riddles--a
network with solutions glimmering elusively through. And being but
two-and-twenty and full of enthusiasm, I said, 'I will devote my
life to this. This is worth while.' You know what fools we are at
two-and-twenty?"

"Fools then or fools now," said Kemp.

"As though knowing could be any satisfaction to a man!

"But I went to work--like a slave. And I had hardly worked and
thought about the matter six months before light came through one
of the meshes suddenly--blindingly! I found a general principle
of pigments and refraction--a formula, a geometrical expression
involving four dimensions. Fools, common men, even common
mathematicians, do not know anything of what some general expression
may mean to the student of molecular physics. In the books--the
books that tramp has hidden--there are marvels, miracles! But this
was not a method, it was an idea, that might lead to a method by
which it would be possible, without changing any other property of
matter--except, in some instances colours--to lower the refractive
index of a substance, solid or liquid, to that of air--so far as all
practical purposes are concerned."

"Phew!" said Kemp. "That's odd! But still I don't see quite ... I
can understand that thereby you could spoil a valuable stone, but
personal invisibility is a far cry."

"Precisely," said Griffin. "But consider, visibility depends on the
action of the visible bodies on light. Either a body absorbs light,
or it reflects or refracts it, or does all these things. If it
neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of
itself be visible. You see an opaque red box, for instance, because
the colour absorbs some of the light and reflects the rest, all the
red part of the light, to you. If it did not absorb any particular
part of the light, but reflected it all, then it would be a shining
white box. Silver! A diamond box would neither absorb much of the
light nor reflect much from the general surface, but just here
and there where the surfaces were favourable the light would
be reflected and refracted, so that you would get a brilliant
appearance of flashing reflections and translucencies--a sort of
skeleton of light. A glass box would not be so brilliant, nor so
clearly visible, as a diamond box, because there would be less
refraction and reflection. See that? From certain points of view
you would see quite clearly through it. Some kinds of glass would
be more visible than others, a box of flint glass would be brighter
than a box of ordinary window glass. A box of very thin common
glass would be hard to see in a bad light, because it would absorb
hardly any light and refract and reflect very little. And if you
put a sheet of common white glass in water, still more if you
put it in some denser liquid than water, it would vanish almost
altogether, because light passing from water to glass is only
slightly refracted or reflected or indeed affected in any way.
It is almost as invisible as a jet of coal gas or hydrogen is in
air. And for precisely the same reason!"

"Yes," said Kemp, "that is pretty plain sailing."

"And here is another fact you will know to be true. If a sheet of
glass is smashed, Kemp, and beaten into a powder, it becomes much
more visible while it is in the air; it becomes at last an opaque
white powder. This is because the powdering multiplies the surfaces
of the glass at which refraction and reflection occur. In the sheet
of glass there are only two surfaces; in the powder the light is
reflected or refracted by each grain it passes through, and very
little gets right through the powder. But if the white powdered
glass is put into water, it forthwith vanishes. The powdered glass
and water have much the same refractive index; that is, the light
undergoes very little refraction or reflection in passing from one
to the other.

"You make the glass invisible by putting it into a liquid of nearly
the same refractive index; a transparent thing becomes invisible if
it is put in any medium of almost the same refractive index. And if
you will consider only a second, you will see also that the powder
of glass might be made to vanish in air, if its refractive index
could be made the same as that of air; for then there would be no
refraction or reflection as the light passed from glass to air."

"Yes, yes," said Kemp. "But a man's not powdered glass!"

"No," said Griffin. "He's more transparent!"

"Nonsense!"

"That from a doctor! How one forgets! Have you already forgotten
your physics, in ten years? Just think of all the things that are
transparent and seem not to be so. Paper, for instance, is made up
of transparent fibres, and it is white and opaque only for the same
reason that a powder of glass is white and opaque. Oil white paper,
fill up the interstices between the particles with oil so that there
is no longer refraction or reflection except at the surfaces, and
it becomes as transparent as glass. And not only paper, but cotton
fibre, linen fibre, wool fibre, woody fibre, and _bone_, Kemp,
_flesh_, Kemp, _hair_, Kemp, _nails_ and _nerves_, Kemp, in fact
the whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black
pigment of hair, are all made up of transparent, colourless tissue.
So little suffices to make us visible one to the other. For the
most part the fibres of a living creature are no more opaque than
water."

"Great Heavens!" cried Kemp. "Of course, of course! I was thinking
only last night of the sea larvae and all jelly-fish!"

"_Now_ you have me! And all that I knew and had in mind a year after
I left London--six years ago. But I kept it to myself. I had to do
my work under frightful disadvantages. Oliver, my professor, was a
scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas--he
was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific
world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I
went on working; I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an
experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to
flash my work upon the world with crushing effect and become famous
at a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain
gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a
discovery in physiology."

"Yes?"

"You know the red colouring matter of blood; it can be made
white--colourless--and remain with all the functions it has now!"

Kemp gave a cry of incredulous amazement.

The Invisible Man rose and began pacing the little study. "You may
well exclaim. I remember that night. It was late at night--in the
daytime one was bothered with the gaping, silly students--and I
worked then sometimes till dawn. It came suddenly, splendid and
complete in my mind. I was alone; the laboratory was still, with the
tall lights burning brightly and silently. In all my great moments
I have been alone. 'One could make an animal--a tissue--transparent!
One could make it invisible! All except the pigments--I could be
invisible!' I said, suddenly realising what it meant to be an albino
with such knowledge. It was overwhelming. I left the filtering I was
doing, and went and stared out of the great window at the stars.
'I could be invisible!' I repeated.

"To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld,
unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility
might mean to a man--the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks
I saw none. You have only to think! And I, a shabby, poverty-struck,
hemmed-in demonstrator, teaching fools in a provincial college,
might suddenly become--this. I ask you, Kemp if _you_ ... Anyone, I
tell you, would have flung himself upon that research. And I worked
three years, and every mountain of difficulty I toiled over showed
another from its summit. The infinite details! And the exasperation!
A professor, a provincial professor, always prying. 'When are you
going to publish this work of yours?' was his everlasting question.
And the students, the cramped means! Three years I had of it--

"And after three years of secrecy and exasperation, I found that to
complete it was impossible--impossible."

"How?" asked Kemp.

"Money," said the Invisible Man, and went again to stare out of the
window.

He turned around abruptly. "I robbed the old man--robbed my
father.

"The money was not his, and he shot himself."

The narrators feminist speech making is goes well, though he feels everyone is a little suspicious of him as a black man claiming to know about women. At one point, he is unexpectedly approached by a woman, who invites him for coffee and asks him to help her with her ideological problems. At her home, he is shocked by her wealthy lifestyle and wonders if she is not trying to buy off some of her guilty conscience with Brotherhood donations. However, she is consciously and overtly feminine in her behavior and appears very interested in learning about the Brotherhood. She serves wine and explains that she wants to adopt a new philosophy in order to replace the emptiness in her life. She tells him that although he makes one feel very secure with his ideology, he also makes her feel afraid. He is shocked by her word choice until she clarifies that she thinks he is very forceful and powerful. He explains that the power is in the organization. She tells him that she feels compelled to respond to his speech whether or not she understands his meaning. The narrator becomes aware of their physical closeness and hesitates, but she urges him to continue to speak. When a bell rings, he gets up to leave, but she asks him to stay. She explains it is only the phone and that her husband is in Chicago. She begins touching his biceps as she speaks to him. He feels many different emotions, wanting to stay, wanting to be violent, fearing people are about to walk into the room with cameras. In the end, he stays and they have sex. Later, he is awakened by a man in the hallway, who looks into the room where the two lovers are and calmly announces his arrival before retiring to his own room. The narrator is frantically scared. He finds his clothing in the dark and is too afraid to awaken the woman. He sneaks out of the house quietly. He cannot figure out why the man did not say anything about his presence. It is again as if he is invisible. Although the narrator fears he will be caught with the woman, he continues to see her. One day he is called to headquarters and thinks at once it is about his affair with the white woman. Instead he is told that Tod Clifton has disappeared and the Brotherhood is losing the people of Harlem to Ras and the nationalists. Jack tells the narrator that he must return to Harlem immediately. The narrator wonders what could have happened to Clifton and wishes he had not lost contact with him in the first place.


AT THE HOUSE IN GREAT PORTLAND STREET

For a moment Kemp sat in silence, staring at the back of the
headless figure at the window. Then he started, struck by a thought,
rose, took the Invisible Man's arm, and turned him away from the
outlook.

"You are tired," he said, "and while I sit, you walk about. Have
my chair."

He placed himself between Griffin and the nearest window.

For a space Griffin sat silent, and then he resumed abruptly:

"I had left the Chesilstowe cottage already," he said, "when that
happened. It was last December. I had taken a room in London, a
large unfurnished room in a big ill-managed lodging-house in a slum
near Great Portland Street. The room was soon full of the appliances
I had bought with his money; the work was going on steadily,
successfully, drawing near an end. I was like a man emerging from a
thicket, and suddenly coming on some unmeaning tragedy. I went to
bury him. My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift
a finger to save his character. I remember the funeral, the cheap
hearse, the scant ceremony, the windy frost-bitten hillside, and the
old college friend of his who read the service over him--a shabby,
black, bent old man with a snivelling cold.

"I remember walking back to the empty house, through the place that
had once been a village and was now patched and tinkered by the
jerry builders into the ugly likeness of a town. Every way the
roads ran out at last into the desecrated fields and ended in
rubble heaps and rank wet weeds. I remember myself as a gaunt black
figure, going along the slippery, shiny pavement, and the strange
sense of detachment I felt from the squalid respectability, the
sordid commercialism of the place.

"I did not feel a bit sorry for my father. He seemed to me to be
the victim of his own foolish sentimentality. The current cant
required my attendance at his funeral, but it was really not my
affair.

"But going along the High Street, my old life came back to me
for a space, for I met the girl I had known ten years since.
Our eyes met.

"Something moved me to turn back and talk to her. She was a very
ordinary person.

"It was all like a dream, that visit to the old places. I did not
feel then that I was lonely, that I had come out from the world
into a desolate place. I appreciated my loss of sympathy, but I put
it down to the general inanity of things. Re-entering my room
seemed like the recovery of reality. There were the things I knew
and loved. There stood the apparatus, the experiments arranged and
waiting. And now there was scarcely a difficulty left, beyond the
planning of details.

"I will tell you, Kemp, sooner or later, all the complicated
processes. We need not go into that now. For the most part, saving
certain gaps I chose to remember, they are written in cypher in
those books that tramp has hidden. We must hunt him down. We must
get those books again. But the essential phase was to place the
transparent object whose refractive index was to be lowered between
two radiating centres of a sort of ethereal vibration, of which I
will tell you more fully later. No, not those Roentgen vibrations--I
don't know that these others of mine have been described. Yet
they are obvious enough. I needed two little dynamos, and these I
worked with a cheap gas engine. My first experiment was with a bit
of white wool fabric. It was the strangest thing in the world to
see it in the flicker of the flashes soft and white, and then to
watch it fade like a wreath of smoke and vanish.

"I could scarcely believe I had done it. I put my hand into the
emptiness, and there was the thing as solid as ever. I felt it
awkwardly, and threw it on the floor. I had a little trouble
finding it again.

"And then came a curious experience. I heard a miaow behind me, and
turning, saw a lean white cat, very dirty, on the cistern cover
outside the window. A thought came into my head. 'Everything ready
for you,' I said, and went to the window, opened it, and called
softly. She came in, purring--the poor beast was starving--and
I gave her some milk. All my food was in a cupboard in the
corner of the room. After that she went smelling round the room,
evidently with the idea of making herself at home. The invisible
rag upset her a bit; you should have seen her spit at it! But I
made her comfortable on the pillow of my truckle-bed. And I gave
her butter to get her to wash."

"And you processed her?"

"I processed her. But giving drugs to a cat is no joke, Kemp! And
the process failed."

"Failed!"

"In two particulars. These were the claws and the pigment stuff,
what is it?--at the back of the eye in a cat. You know?"

"_Tapetum_."

"Yes, the _tapetum_. It didn't go. After I'd given the stuff to
bleach the blood and done certain other things to her, I gave the
beast opium, and put her and the pillow she was sleeping on, on the
apparatus. And after all the rest had faded and vanished, there
remained two little ghosts of her eyes."

"Odd!"

"I can't explain it. She was bandaged and clamped, of course--so
I had her safe; but she woke while she was still misty, and miaowed
dismally, and someone came knocking. It was an old woman from
downstairs, who suspected me of vivisecting--a drink-sodden old
creature, with only a white cat to care for in all the world. I
whipped out some chloroform, applied it, and answered the door.
'Did I hear a cat?' she asked. 'My cat?' 'Not here,' said I, very
politely. She was a little doubtful and tried to peer past me into
the room; strange enough to her no doubt--bare walls, uncurtained
windows, truckle-bed, with the gas engine vibrating, and the
seethe of the radiant points, and that faint ghastly stinging of
chloroform in the air. She had to be satisfied at last and went
away again."

"How long did it take?" asked Kemp.

"Three or four hours--the cat. The bones and sinews and the fat
were the last to go, and the tips of the coloured hairs. And, as I
say, the back part of the eye, tough, iridescent stuff it is,
wouldn't go at all.

"It was night outside long before the business was over, and nothing
was to be seen but the dim eyes and the claws. I stopped the gas
engine, felt for and stroked the beast, which was still insensible,
and then, being tired, left it sleeping on the invisible pillow and
went to bed. I found it hard to sleep. I lay awake thinking weak
aimless stuff, going over the experiment over and over again, or
dreaming feverishly of things growing misty and vanishing about me,
until everything, the ground I stood on, vanished, and so I came to
that sickly falling nightmare one gets. About two, the cat began
miaowing about the room. I tried to hush it by talking to it, and
then I decided to turn it out. I remember the shock I had when
striking a light--there were just the round eyes shining green--and
nothing round them. I would have given it milk, but I hadn't any. It
wouldn't be quiet, it just sat down and miaowed at the door. I tried
to catch it, with an idea of putting it out of the window, but it
wouldn't be caught, it vanished. Then it began miaowing in different
parts of the room. At last I opened the window and made a bustle. I
suppose it went out at last. I never saw any more of it.

"Then--Heaven knows why--I fell thinking of my father's funeral
again, and the dismal windy hillside, until the day had come. I
found sleeping was hopeless, and, locking my door after me,
wandered out into the morning streets."

"You don't mean to say there's an invisible cat at large!" said
Kemp.

"If it hasn't been killed," said the Invisible Man. "Why not?"

"Why not?" said Kemp. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"It's very probably been killed," said the Invisible Man. "It
was alive four days after, I know, and down a grating in Great
Titchfield Street; because I saw a crowd round the place, trying
to see whence the miaowing came."

He was silent for the best part of a minute. Then he resumed
abruptly:

"I remember that morning before the change very vividly. I must have
gone up Great Portland Street. I remember the barracks in Albany
Street, and the horse soldiers coming out, and at last I found the
summit of Primrose Hill. It was a sunny day in January--one of those
sunny, frosty days that came before the snow this year. My weary
brain tried to formulate the position, to plot out a plan of action.

"I was surprised to find, now that my prize was within my grasp, how
inconclusive its attainment seemed. As a matter of fact I was worked
out; the intense stress of nearly four years' continuous work left
me incapable of any strength of feeling. I was apathetic, and I
tried in vain to recover the enthusiasm of my first inquiries,
the passion of discovery that had enabled me to compass even the
downfall of my father's grey hairs. Nothing seemed to matter. I saw
pretty clearly this was a transient mood, due to overwork and want
of sleep, and that either by drugs or rest it would be possible to
recover my energies.

"All I could think clearly was that the thing had to be carried
through; the fixed idea still ruled me. And soon, for the money I
had was almost exhausted. I looked about me at the hillside, with
children playing and girls watching them, and tried to think of all
the fantastic advantages an invisible man would have in the world.
After a time I crawled home, took some food and a strong dose of
strychnine, and went to sleep in my clothes on my unmade bed.
Strychnine is a grand tonic, Kemp, to take the flabbiness out of
a man."

"It's the devil," said Kemp. "It's the palaeolithic in a bottle."

"I awoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable. You know?"

"I know the stuff."

"And there was someone rapping at the door. It was my landlord
with threats and inquiries, an old Polish Jew in a long grey coat
and greasy slippers. I had been tormenting a cat in the night, he
was sure--the old woman's tongue had been busy. He insisted on
knowing all about it. The laws in this country against vivisection
were very severe--he might be liable. I denied the cat. Then the
vibration of the little gas engine could be felt all over the
house, he said. That was true, certainly. He edged round me into
the room, peering about over his German-silver spectacles, and a
sudden dread came into my mind that he might carry away something
of my secret. I tried to keep between him and the concentrating
apparatus I had arranged, and that only made him more curious. What
was I doing? Why was I always alone and secretive? Was it legal?
Was it dangerous? I paid nothing but the usual rent. His had always
been a most respectable house--in a disreputable neighbourhood.
Suddenly my temper gave way. I told him to get out. He began to
protest, to jabber of his right of entry. In a moment I had him by
the collar; something ripped, and he went spinning out into his own
passage. I slammed and locked the door and sat down quivering.

"He made a fuss outside, which I disregarded, and after a time he
went away.

"But this brought matters to a crisis. I did not know what he
would do, nor even what he had the power to do. To move to fresh
apartments would have meant delay; altogether I had barely twenty
pounds left in the world, for the most part in a bank--and I
could not afford that. Vanish! It was irresistible. Then there
would be an inquiry, the sacking of my room.

"At the thought of the possibility of my work being exposed or
interrupted at its very climax, I became very angry and active. I
hurried out with my three books of notes, my cheque-book--the tramp
has them now--and directed them from the nearest Post Office to a
house of call for letters and parcels in Great Portland Street. I
tried to go out noiselessly. Coming in, I found my landlord going
quietly upstairs; he had heard the door close, I suppose. You would
have laughed to see him jump aside on the landing as I came tearing
after him. He glared at me as I went by him, and I made the house
quiver with the slamming of my door. I heard him come shuffling up
to my floor, hesitate, and go down. I set to work upon my
preparations forthwith.

"It was all done that evening and night. While I was still sitting
under the sickly, drowsy influence of the drugs that decolourise
blood, there came a repeated knocking at the door. It ceased,
footsteps went away and returned, and the knocking was resumed.
There was an attempt to push something under the door--a blue
paper. Then in a fit of irritation I rose and went and flung the
door wide open. 'Now then?' said I.

"It was my landlord, with a notice of ejectment or something. He
held it out to me, saw something odd about my hands, I expect, and
lifted his eyes to my face.

"For a moment he gaped. Then he gave a sort of inarticulate cry,
dropped candle and writ together, and went blundering down the dark
passage to the stairs. I shut the door, locked it, and went to the
looking-glass. Then I understood his terror.... My face was
white--like white stone.

"But it was all horrible. I had not expected the suffering. A night
of racking anguish, sickness and fainting. I set my teeth, though my
skin was presently afire, all my body afire; but I lay there like
grim death. I understood now how it was the cat had howled until I
chloroformed it. Lucky it was I lived alone and untended in my room.
There were times when I sobbed and groaned and talked. But I stuck
to it.... I became insensible and woke languid in the darkness.

"The pain had passed. I thought I was killing myself and I did not
care. I shall never forget that dawn, and the strange horror of
seeing that my hands had become as clouded glass, and watching them
grow clearer and thinner as the day went by, until at last I could
see the sickly disorder of my room through them, though I closed my
transparent eyelids. My limbs became glassy, the bones and arteries
faded, vanished, and the little white nerves went last. I gritted
my teeth and stayed there to the end. At last only the dead tips of
the fingernails remained, pallid and white, and the brown stain of
some acid upon my fingers.

"I struggled up. At first I was as incapable as a swathed
infant--stepping with limbs I could not see. I was weak and very
hungry. I went and stared at nothing in my shaving-glass, at nothing
save where an attenuated pigment still remained behind the retina of
my eyes, fainter than mist. I had to hang on to the table and press
my forehead against the glass.

"It was only by a frantic effort of will that I dragged myself back
to the apparatus and completed the process.

"I slept during the forenoon, pulling the sheet over my eyes to shut
out the light, and about midday I was awakened again by a knocking.
My strength had returned. I sat up and listened and heard a
whispering. I sprang to my feet and as noiselessly as possible began
to detach the connections of my apparatus, and to distribute it
about the room, so as to destroy the suggestions of its arrangement.
Presently the knocking was renewed and voices called, first my
landlord's, and then two others. To gain time I answered them. The
invisible rag and pillow came to hand and I opened the window and
pitched them out on to the cistern cover. As the window opened, a
heavy crash came at the door. Someone had charged it with the idea
of smashing the lock. But the stout bolts I had screwed up some
days before stopped him. That startled me, made me angry. I began
to tremble and do things hurriedly.

"I tossed together some loose paper, straw, packing paper and so
forth, in the middle of the room, and turned on the gas. Heavy
blows began to rain upon the door. I could not find the matches. I
beat my hands on the wall with rage. I turned down the gas again,
stepped out of the window on the cistern cover, very softly lowered
the sash, and sat down, secure and invisible, but quivering with
anger, to watch events. They split a panel, I saw, and in another
moment they had broken away the staples of the bolts and stood in
the open doorway. It was the landlord and his two step-sons, sturdy
young men of three or four and twenty. Behind them fluttered the
old hag of a woman from downstairs.

"You may imagine their astonishment to find the room empty. One of
the younger men rushed to the window at once, flung it up and stared
out. His staring eyes and thick-lipped bearded face came a foot
from my face. I was half minded to hit his silly countenance, but I
arrested my doubled fist. He stared right through me. So did the
others as they joined him. The old man went and peered under the
bed, and then they all made a rush for the cupboard. They had to
argue about it at length in Yiddish and Cockney English. They
concluded I had not answered them, that their imagination had
deceived them. A feeling of extraordinary elation took the place
of my anger as I sat outside the window and watched these four
people--for the old lady came in, glancing suspiciously about her
like a cat, trying to understand the riddle of my behaviour.

"The old man, so far as I could understand his _patois_, agreed with
the old lady that I was a vivisectionist. The sons protested in
garbled English that I was an electrician, and appealed to the
dynamos and radiators. They were all nervous about my arrival,
although I found subsequently that they had bolted the front door.
The old lady peered into the cupboard and under the bed, and one of
the young men pushed up the register and stared up the chimney. One
of my fellow lodgers, a coster-monger who shared the opposite room
with a butcher, appeared on the landing, and he was called in and
told incoherent things.

"It occurred to me that the radiators, if they fell into the hands
of some acute well-educated person, would give me away too much,
and watching my opportunity, I came into the room and tilted one of
the little dynamos off its fellow on which it was standing, and
smashed both apparatus. Then, while they were trying to explain the
smash, I dodged out of the room and went softly downstairs.

"I went into one of the sitting-rooms and waited until they came
down, still speculating and argumentative, all a little disappointed
at finding no 'horrors,' and all a little puzzled how they stood
legally towards me. Then I slipped up again with a box of matches,
fired my heap of paper and rubbish, put the chairs and bedding
thereby, led the gas to the affair, by means of an india-rubber
tube, and waving a farewell to the room left it for the last time."

"You fired the house!" exclaimed Kemp.

"Fired the house. It was the only way to cover my trail--and no
doubt it was insured. I slipped the bolts of the front door quietly
and went out into the street. I was invisible, and I was only just
beginning to realise the extraordinary advantage my invisibility
gave me. My head was already teeming with plans of all the wild and
wonderful things I had now impunity to do."

The narrator goes to a bar in Harlem and greets a couple of men as brothers, but they take offense. Barrelhouse, the bartender, settles them down, but one of them speaks up, saying he heard the narrator sold out to the white men, abandoning Harlem. Later, Barrelhouse tells the narrator that many of the local black men who received employment through the Brotherhood have now lost their jobs. The narrator leaves and is shocked to see how desperate things have become in the neighborhood while he has been gone. There is a total lack of Brotherhood activity in the area. Arriving at the office, he is dismayed to find no one there. Later that night he discovers Brother Tarp's things are gone. The next day the narrator feels anxious when no one calls him about the strategy meeting. He calls headquarters, but no one answers. Finally, he goes down to headquarters and discovers the Brotherhood is holding a meeting without him, intentionally. They have left strict orders not to be disrupted, so he leaves in a rage. He decides that they will have to come looking for him when they decide to talk to him. He also resolves that he will not be doing any more business downtown. When he stops on the street to buy a new pair of shoes, the narrator sees a gathering crowd. He approaches and finds the crowd is watching a vendor who is selling strange stereotypical black dolls that dance comically when strings are pulled. The dolls are horrifyingly comic, grotesque enough that the narrator is seized with the urge to destroy them all. He looks up and discovers to his horror that the vendor is none other than Tod Clifton, who smiles contemptuously at him. The police approach and the crowd moves away, separating the narrator from Tod without the chance to talk. One of the dolls has been left on the street, and the narrator is about to crush it with his foot; instead, he picks it up and carries it with him, wondering and agonizing over what Clifton is doing. He recalls the conversation he had with Clifton one night after a scuffle with Ras. He realizes that Clifton has turned his back on the Brotherhood for good Later he sees Clifton at a distance in the park with another man. The other man leaves and Clifton walks on, but a police officer follows him. The policeman begins to harass Clifton, pushing him. Eventually, Clifton hits the officer, landing the policeman on his back. The narrator sees Clifton fall to his knees; the officer slowly rises with a gun in hand. A shot is fired, and Tod Clifton is dead. The narrator tries to understand what has happened to Clifton. He realizes that he is the only witness to the short life and death of Tod Clifton, an ordinary man. He wonders who will speak for and remember ordinary people. After leaving the subway, the narrator walks down the block, suddenly aware of all the black people around him living lives independent of the Brotherhood. He realizes that he had never noticed these people when he worked in Harlem the first time. As he passes them, he feels as if he is walking by familiar friends, ordinary individuals, who refuse to acknowledge him. He begins to see the truth of the Brotherhood, which is that he was used for a time and now he is no longer needed. He never had an individual worth to the organization, so he is easily forgotten.