was not the remotest chance of my being believed, if I had told my story

then, and it would certainly have subjected me to intolerable annoyances.

I went to sleep. When at last I woke up again I was ready to face the

world as I have always been accustomed to face it since I came to years of

discretion. And so I got away to Italy, and there it is I am writing this

story. If the world will not have it as fact, then the world may take it

as fiction. It is no concern of mine.

And now that the account is finished, I am amazed to think how completely

this adventure is gone and done with. Everybody believes that Cavor was a

not very brilliant scientific experimenter who blew up his house and

himself at Lympne, and they explain the bang that followed my arrival at

Littlestone by a reference to the experiments with explosives that are

going on continually at the government establishment of Lydd, two miles

away. I must confess that hitherto I have not acknowledged my share in the

disappearance of Master Tommy Simmons, which was that little boy's name.

That, perhaps, may prove a difficult item of corroboration to explain

away. They account for my appearance in rags with two bars of indisputable

gold upon the Littlestone beach in various ingenious ways--it doesn't

worry me what they think of me. They say I have strung all these things

together to avoid being questioned too closely as to the source of my

wealth. I would like to see the man who could invent a story that would

hold together like this one. Well, they must take it as fiction--there it

is.

I have told my story--and now, I suppose, I have to take up the worries

244

The First Men In The Moon