alarmed. But she was a resolute woman. "In which case, I should

like to know, sir, what you consider--"

"A shilling--put down a shilling. Surely a shilling's enough?"

"So be it," said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginning

to spread it over the table. "If you're satisfied, of course--"

He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her.

All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall

testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a

concussion and a sound of bottles ringing together as though the

table had been hit, and the smash of a bottle flung violently down,

and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. Fearing "something was

the matter," she went to the door and listened, not caring to

knock.

I can't go on," he was raving. "I can't go on. Three hundred

thousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! Cheated! All

my life it may take me! ... Patience! Patience indeed! ... Fool!

fool!"

There was a noise of hobnails on the bricks in the bar, and Mrs.

Hall had very reluctantly to leave the rest of his soliloquy.

When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faint

The Invisible Man