CHAPTER IX

MR. THOMAS MARVEL

You must picture Mr. Thomas Marvel as a person of copious, flexible

visage, a nose of cylindrical protrusion, a liquorish, ample,

fluctuating mouth, and a beard of bristling eccentricity. His figure

inclined to embonpoint; his short limbs accentuated this inclination.

He wore a furry silk hat, and the frequent substitution of twine and

shoe-laces for buttons, apparent at critical points of his costume,

marked a man essentially bachelor.

Mr. Thomas Marvel was sitting with his feet in a ditch by the

roadside over the down towards Adderdean, about a mile and a half

out of Iping. His feet, save for socks of irregular open-work, were

bare, his big toes were broad, and pricked like the ears of a

watchful dog. In a leisurely manner--he did everything in a

leisurely manner--he was contemplating trying on a pair of boots.

They were the soundest boots he had come across for a long time, but

too large for him; whereas the ones he had were, in dry weather, a

very comfortable fit, but too thin-soled for damp. Mr. Thomas Marvel

hated roomy shoes, but then he hated damp. He had never properly

thought out which he hated most, and it was a pleasant day, and

there was nothing better to do. So he put the four shoes in a

graceful group on the turf and looked at them. And seeing them there

The Invisible Man