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.

110

The Invisible Man