shadowy, and indistinct to her, the more so since she had just been

lighting the bar lamp, and her eyes were dazzled. But for a second

it seemed to her that the man she looked at had an enormous mouth

wide open--a vast and incredible mouth that swallowed the whole of

the lower portion of his face. It was the sensation of a moment:

the white-bound head, the monstrous goggle eyes, and this huge yawn

below it. Then he stirred, started up in his chair, put up his hand.

She opened the door wide, so that the room was lighter, and she saw

him more clearly, with the muffler held up to his face just as she

had seen him hold the serviette before. The shadows, she fancied,

had tricked her.

"Would you mind, sir, this man a-coming to look at the clock, sir?"

she said, recovering from the momentary shock.

Look at the clock?" he said, staring round in a drowsy manner,

and speaking over his hand, and then, getting more fully awake,

certainly."

Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp, and he rose and stretched

himself. Then came the light, and Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was

confronted by this bandaged person. He was, he says, "taken aback."

Good afternoon," said the stranger, regarding him--as Mr. Henfrey

says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles--"like a lobster."

The Invisible Man