under the window-blinds. He could see nothing, but gave reason

for supposing that he did, and others of the Iping youth

presently joined him.

It was the finest of all possible Whit Mondays, and down the

village street stood a row of nearly a dozen booths, a shooting

gallery, and on the grass by the forge were three yellow and

chocolate waggons and some picturesque strangers of both sexes

putting up a cocoanut shy. The gentlemen wore blue jerseys, the

ladies white aprons and quite fashionable hats with heavy plumes.

Wodger, of the "Purple Fawn," and Mr. Jaggers, the cobbler, who

also sold old second-hand ordinary bicycles, were stretching a

string of union-jacks and royal ensigns (which had originally

celebrated the first Victorian Jubilee) across the road.

And inside, in the artificial darkness of the parlour, into which

only one thin jet of sunlight penetrated, the stranger, hungry we

must suppose, and fearful, hidden in his uncomfortable hot wrappings,

pored through his dark glasses upon his paper or chinked his dirty

little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys, audible

if invisible, outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace

lay the fragments of half a dozen smashed bottles, and a pungent

twang of chlorine tainted the air. So much we know from what was

heard at the time and from what was subsequently seen in the room.

About noon he suddenly opened his parlour door and stood glaring

The Invisible Man