barking and leaping, showing, as it seemed to me, only too plainly

that he was aware of me. I crossed Great Russell Street, glancing

over my shoulder as I did so, and went some way along Montague

Street before I realised what I was running towards.

Then I became aware of a blare of music, and looking along the

street saw a number of people advancing out of Russell Square, red

shirts, and the banner of the Salvation Army to the fore. Such a

crowd, chanting in the roadway and scoffing on the pavement, I

could not hope to penetrate, and dreading to go back and farther

from home again, and deciding on the spur of the moment, I ran up

the white steps of a house facing the museum railings, and stood

there until the crowd should have passed. Happily the dog stopped

at the noise of the band too, hesitated, and turned tail, running

back to Bloomsbury Square again.

On came the band, bawling with unconscious irony some hymn about

'When shall we see His face?' and it seemed an interminable time

to me before the tide of the crowd washed along the pavement by me.

Thud, thud, thud, came the drum with a vibrating resonance, and for

the moment I did not notice two urchins stopping at the railings by

me. 'See 'em,' said one. 'See what?' said the other. 'Why--them

footmarks--bare. Like what you makes in mud.'

I looked down and saw the youngsters had stopped and were gaping

at the muddy footmarks I had left behind me up the newly whitened

The Invisible Man