invisibility gave me (as I still imagined) over my fellow-men.

"Closing time arrived quickly enough. It could not have been more

than an hour after I took up my position on the mattresses before I

noticed the blinds of the windows being drawn, and customers being

marched doorward. And then a number of brisk young men began with

remarkable alacrity to tidy up the goods that remained disturbed. I

left my lair as the crowds diminished, and prowled cautiously out

into the less desolate parts of the shop. I was really surprised to

observe how rapidly the young men and women whipped away the goods

displayed for sale during the day. All the boxes of goods, the

hanging fabrics, the festoons of lace, the boxes of sweets in the

grocery section, the displays of this and that, were being whipped

down, folded up, slapped into tidy receptacles, and everything that

could not be taken down and put away had sheets of some coarse

stuff like sacking flung over them. Finally all the chairs were

turned up on to the counters, leaving the floor clear. Directly

each of these young people had done, he or she made promptly for

the door with such an expression of animation as I have rarely

observed in a shop assistant before. Then came a lot of youngsters

scattering sawdust and carrying pails and brooms. I had to dodge

to get out of the way, and as it was, my ankle got stung with the

sawdust. For some time, wandering through the swathed and darkened

departments, I could hear the brooms at work. And at last a good

hour or more after the shop had been closed, came a noise of

locking doors. Silence came upon the place, and I found myself

175

The Invisible Man