The First Men in the Moon by H. Wells (smart ebook reader TXT) 📗

found myself in a terrestrial bathroom once more with warm water to wash myself with, and a change of raiment, preposterously small indeed, but anyhow clean, that the genial little man had lent me. He lent me a razor too, but I could not screw up my resolution to attack even the outposts of the bristling beard that covered my face.

I sat down to an English breakfast and ate with a sort of languid appetite — an appetite many weeks old, and very decrepit — and stirred myself to answer the questions of the four young men. And I told them the truth.

‘Well,’ said I, ‘as you press me — I got it in the moon.’

‘The moon?’

‘Yes, the moon in the sky.’

‘But how do you mean?’

‘What i say, confound it!’

‘That you have just come from the moon?’

‘Exactly! through space — in that ball.’ And I took a delicious mouthful of egg. I made a private note that when I went back to the moon I would take a box of eggs.

I could see clearly that they did not believe one word of what I told them, but evidently they considered me the most respectable liar they had ever met. They glanced at one another, and then concentrated the fire of their eyes on me. I fancy they expected a clue to me in the way I helped myself to salt. They seemed to find something significant in my peppering my egg. These strangely shaped masses of gold they had staggered under held their minds. There the lumps lay in front of me, each worth thousands of pounds, and as impossible for any one to steal as a house or a piece of land. As I looked at their curious faces over my coffee-cup, I realised something of the enormous wilderness of explanations into which I should have to wander to render myself comprehensible again.

‘You don’t really mean — ’ began the youngest young man, in the tone of one who speaks to an obstinate child.

‘Just pass me that toast-rack,’ I said, and shut him up completely.

‘But look here, I say,’ began one of the others. ‘We’re not going to believe that, you know.’

‘Ah, well,’ said I, and shrugged my shoulders.

‘He doesn’t want to tell us,’ said the youngest young man in a stage aside; and then, with an appearance of great sang-froid, ‘You don’t mind if I take a cigarette?’

I waved him a cordial assent, and proceeded with my breakfast. Two of the others went and looked out of the farther window and talked inaudibly. I was struck by a thought. ‘The tide,’ I said, ‘is running out?’

There was a pause, a doubt who should answer me. ‘It’s near the ebb,’ said the fat little man.

‘Well, anyhow,’ I said, ‘it won’t float far.’

I decapitated my third egg, and began a little speech. ‘Look here,’ I said. ‘Please don’t imagine I’m surly or telling you uncivil lies, or anything of that sort. I’m forced almost, to be a little short and mysterious. I can quite understand this is as queer as it can be, and that your imaginations must be going it. I can assure you, you’re in at a memorable time. But I can’t make it clear to you now — it’s impossible. I give you my word of honour I’ve come from the moon, and that’s all I can tell you. . . . All the same I’m tremendously obliged to you, you know, tremendously. I hope that my manner hasn’t in any way given you offence.’

‘Oh, not in the least!’ said the youngest young man affably. ‘We can quite understand,’ and staring hard at me all the time, he heeled his chair back until it very nearly upset, and recovered with some exertion. ‘Not a bit of it,’ said the fat young man. ‘Don’t you imagine that! ’ and they all got up and dispersed, and walked about and lit cigarettes, and generally tried to show they were perfectly amiable and disengaged, and entirely free from the slightest curiosity about me and the sphere. ‘I’m going to keep an eye on that ship out there all the same,’ I heard one of them remarking in an undertone. If only they could have forced themselves to it, they would, I believe, even have gone out and left me. I went on with my third egg.

‘The weather,’ the fat little man remarked presently, ‘has been immense, has it not? i don’t know when we have had such a summer. . . .’

Phoo — whizz! Like a tremendous rocket!

And somewhere a window was broken. . . .

‘What’s that?’ said I.

‘It isn’t — ?’ cried the little man, and rushed to the corner window.

All the others rushed to the window likewise. I sat staring at them.

Suddenly I leapt up, knocked over my third egg, and rushed for the window also. I had just thought of something. ‘Nothing to be seen there,’ cried the little man, rushing for the door.

‘It’s that boy!’ I cried, bawling in hoarse fury; ‘it’s that accursed boy!’ and turning about I pushed the waiter aside — he was just bringing me some more toast — and rushed violently out of the room and down and out upon the queer little esplanade in front of the hotel.

The sea, which had been smooth, was rough now with hurrying cat’s-paws, and all about where the sphere had been was tumbled water like the wake of a ship. Above, a little puff of cloud whirled like dispersing smoke, and the three or four people on the beach were staring up with interrogative faces towards the point of that unexpected report. And that was all! Boots* and waiter and the four young men in blazers came rushing out behind me. Shouts came from windows and doors, and all sorts of worrying people came into sight — agape.

For a time I stood there, too overwhelmed by this new development to think of the people.

At first I was too stunned to see the thing as any definite disaster — I was just stunned, as a man is by some accidental violent blow. It is only afterwards he begins to appreciate his specific injury.

‘Good Lord!’

I felt as though somebody was pouring