You must picture Mr. Thomas Marvel as a person of copious, flexible face, a cylindrical nose, an ample, fluctuating mouth, and a beard of untidy eccentricity. His figure inclined to roundness; his short arms and legs accentuated this inclination. He wore a furry silk hat, and the frequent substitution of string and shoe-laces for buttons, apparent at critical points of his clothes, marked a man essentially bachelor.
Mr. Thomas Marvel was sitting with his feet in a ditch by the roadside toward Adderdean, about a mile and a half out of Iping. His feet, except for socks with irregular patches, 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 best 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 boots, 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 boots in a graceful group on the ground and looked at them. And seeing them there among the grass, it suddenly occurred to him that both pairs were exceedingly ugly. He was not at all surprised by a voice behind him.
"They're boots, anyhow," said the voice.
"They are - charity boots," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with his head on one side regarding them distastefully; "and I've no idea which is the ugliest pair in the whole universe!"
"H'm," said the voice.
"I've worn worse - in fact, I've worn none. But none so incredibly ugly. I've been looking for boots - in particular - for days. Because I was sick of them. They're good enough, of course. But a travelling gentleman sees such a lot of his boots. And if you'll believe me, I've found nothing in the whole blessed county, try as I would, but THEM. Look at them! And a good county for boots, too, in a general way. But it's just my luck. I've got my boots in this county for ten years or more. And then they treat you like this."
"It's a beast of a county," said the voice. "And pigs for people."
"Ain't it?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Lord! But them boots! It beats it."
He turned his head over his shoulder to the right, to look at the boots of his interlocutor with a view to comparisons, and lo! where the boots of his interlocutor should have been were neither legs nor boots. He turned his head over his shoulder to the left, and there also were neither legs nor boots. He was irradiated by the dawn of a great amazement. "Where are you?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel over his shoulder and coming round on all fours. He saw a stretch of empty countryside with the wind blowing and remote green-pointed bushes.
"Am I drunk?" said Mr. Marvel. "Have I had visions? Was I talking to myself? What the - "
"Don't be alarmed," said a voice.
"None of your ventriloquising me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rising sharply to his feet. "Where are you? Alarmed, indeed!"
"Don't be alarmed," repeated the voice.
"You'll be alarmed in a minute, you silly fool," said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Where are you? Let me see you -"
"Are you buried?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, after an interval.
There was no answer. Mr. Thomas Marvel stood bootless and amazed, his jacket nearly thrown off.
"Peewit," said a bird, very remote.
"Peewit, indeed!" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "This is no time for foolery." The down was desolate, east and west, north and south; the road with its shallow ditches and white bordering posts, ran smooth and empty north and south, and, except for that bird, the blue sky was empty too. "So help me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, pulling his coat on to his shoulders again. "It's the drink! I might have known."
"It's not the drink," said the voice. "You keep your nerves steady."
"Ow!" said Mr. Marvel, and his face grew white. "It's the drink," his lips repeated noiselessly. He remained staring about him, rotating slowly backwards. "I could have sworn I heard a voice," he whispered.
"Of course you did."
"It's there again," said Mr. Marvel, closing his eyes and putting his hand on his forehead with a tragic gesture. He was suddenly taken by the collar and shaken violently and left more dazed than ever. "Don't be a fool," said the voice.
"I'm - off - my - head," said Mr. Marvel. "It's no good. It's worrying about those blasted boots. I'm off my blessed head. Or it's spirits."
"Neither one thing nor the other," said the voice. "Listen!"
"Fool," said Mr. Marvel.
"One minute," said the voice penetratingly, - tremulous with self-control.
"Well?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with a strange feeling of having been poked in the chest by a finger.
"You think I'm just imagination? Just imagination?"
"What else can you be?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Very well," said the voice, in a tone of relief. "Then I'm going to throw stones at you till you think differently."
"But where are you?"
The voice made no answer. Whiz came a stone, apparently out of the air, and missed Mr. Marvel's shoulder by a hair's breadth. Mr. Marvel, turning, saw a stone raise up into the air, trace a complicated path, hang for a moment, and then fly at his feet with almost invisible rapidity. He was too amazed to avoid it. Whiz it came, and ricocheted from a bare toe into the ditch. Mr. Thomas Marvel jumped a foot and howled aloud. Then he started to run, tripped over an unseen obstacle, and came head over heels into a sitting position.
"Now," said the voice, as a third stone curved upward and hung in the air above the tramp. "Am I imagination?"
Mr. Marvel by way of reply struggled to his feet, and was immediately rolled over again. He lay quiet for a moment. "If you struggle any more," said the voice, "I shall throw the stone at your head."
"All right, all right," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, sitting up, taking his wounded toe in hand and fixing his eye on the third missle. "I don't understand it. Stones throwing themselves. Stones talking. Put yourself down. I'm done."
The third stone fell.
"It's very simple," said the voice. "I'm an invisible man."
"Tell me something I don't know," said Mr. Marvel, gasping with pain. "Where are you hidden - how you do it - I don't know, I'm beat."
"That's all," said the voice. "I'm invisible. That's what I want you to understand."
"Any one could see that. There is no need for you to be so damned impatient, mister. Now then. Give me a clue. How are you hidden?"
"I'm invisible. That's the great point. And what I want you to understand is this - "
"But whereabouts?" interrupted Mr. Marvel.
"Here! Six yards in front of you."
"Oh, come on! I'm not blind. You'll be telling me next you're just thin air. I'm not one of your ignorant tramps - "
"Yes, I am - thin air. You're looking through me."
"What! Isn't there any stuff to you? Is it that?"
"I am just a human being - solid, needing food and drink, needing covering too - But I'm invisible. You see? Invisible. Simple idea. Invisible."
"What, real like?"
"Yes, real."
"Let me touch you," said Marvel, "if you are real. It won't be so strange like, then - Lord!" he said, "how you made me jump! - gripping me like that!"
He felt the hand that had closed round his wrist with his fingers, and his touch went cautiously up the arm, patted a muscular chest, and explored a bearded face. Marvel's face was astonishment.
"I'm damned!" he said. "Most remarkable! - And there I can see a rabbit straight through you, half a mile away! Not a bit of you visible - except - "
He scrutinised the apparently empty space keenly. "You haven't been eatin' bread and cheese?" he asked, holding the invisible arm.
"You're quite right, and it's not quite assimilated into the system."
"Ah!" said Mr. Marvel. "Sort of ghostly, though."
"Of course, all this isn't so wonderful as you think."
"It's quite wonderful enough for my modest wants," said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "How do you manage it? How on earth is it done?"
"It's too long a story. And besides - "
"I tell you, the whole business fair beats me," said Mr. Marvel.
"What I want to say at present is this: I need help. I have come to that - I came upon you suddenly. I was wandering, mad with rage, naked, impotent. I could have murdered. And I saw you - "
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel.
"I came up behind you - hesitated - went on - "
Mr. Marvel's expression was eloquent.
" - then stopped. 'Here,' I said, 'is an outcast like myself. This is the man for me.' So I turned back and came to you - you. And - "
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. "But I'm all confused. May I ask - How is it? And what you may be requiring in the way of help? - Invisible!"
"I want you to help me get clothes - and shelter - and then, with other things. I've left them long enough. If you won't - well! But you will - must."
"Look here," said Mr. Marvel. "I'm too flabbergasted. Don't knock me about any more. And let me go. I must get steady a bit. And you've pretty near broken my toe. It's all so unreasonable. Empty downs, empty sky. Nothing visible for miles except the bosom of Nature. And then comes a voice. A voice out of heaven! And stones! And a fist - Lord!"
"Pull yourself together," said the voice, "for you have to do the job I've chosen for you."
Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were round.
"I've chosen you," said the voice. "You are the only man, except some of those fools down there, who knows there is such a thing as an invisible man. You have to be my helper. Help me - and I will do great things for you. An invisible man is a man of power." He stopped for a moment to sneeze violently.
"But if you betray me," he said, "if you fail to do as I direct you - "
He paused and tapped Mr. Marvel's shoulder. Mr. Marvel gave a yelp of terror at the touch. "I don't want to betray you," said Mr. Marvel, moving away from the direction of the fingers. "Don't you go a-thinking that, whatever you do. All I want to do is to help you - just tell me what I've got to do. (Lord!) Whatever you want done, that I'm most willing to do."