Chapter 22

The Astonishing Communication of Mr. Julius Wendigee

When I had finished my account of my return to the earth at Littlestone, I

wrote, "The End," made a flourish, and threw my pen aside, fully believing

that the whole story of the First Men in the Moon was done. Not only had I

done this, but I had placed my manuscript in the hands of a literary

agent, had permitted it to be sold, had seen the greater portion of it

appear in the Strand Magazine, and was setting to work again upon the

scenario of the play I had commenced at Lympne before I realised that the

end was not yet. And then, following me from Amalfi to Algiers, there

reached me (it is now about six months ago) one of the most astounding

communications I have ever been fated to receive. Briefly, it informed me

that Mr. Julius Wendigee, a Dutch electrician, who has been experimenting

with certain apparatus akin to the apparatus used by Mr. Tesla in America,

in the hope of discovering some method of communication with Mars, was

receiving day by day a curiously fragmentary message in English, which was

indisputably emanating from Mr. Cavor in the moon.

At first I thought the thing was an elaborate practical joke by some one

who had seen the manuscript of my narrative. I answered Mr. Wendigee

jestingly, but he replied in a manner that put such suspicion altogether

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