Short Fiction by H. G. Wells (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

on the dressing-table alight, that was all⁠—sometimes one or other would flare up into a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things happened. ‘I can’t,’ he said; ‘I shall never⁠—!’ And suddenly he sat down on a little chair at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob. Lord! what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed!

“ ‘You pull yourself together,’ I said, and tried to pat him on the back, and⁠ ⁠… my confounded hand went through him! By that time, you know, I wasn’t nearly so⁠—massive as I had been on the landing. I got the queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out of him, as it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the dressing-table. ‘You pull yourself together,’ I said to him, ‘and try.’ And in order to encourage and help him I began to try as well.”

“What!” said Sanderson, “the passes?”

“Yes, the passes.”

“But⁠—” I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space.

“This is interesting,” said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-bowl. “You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away⁠—”

“Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? Yes.”

“He didn’t,” said Wish; “he couldn’t. Or you’d have gone there too.”

“That’s precisely it,” I said, finding my elusive idea put into words for me.

“That is precisely it,” said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the fire.

For just a little while there was silence.

“And at last he did it?” said Sanderson.

“At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it at last⁠—rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then he got up abruptly and asked me to go through the whole performance, slowly, so that he might see. ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘if I could see I should spot what was wrong at once.’ And he did. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘What do you know?’ said I. ‘I know,’ he repeated. Then he said, peevishly, ‘I can’t do it if you look at me⁠—I really can’t; it’s been that, partly, all along. I’m such a nervous fellow that you put me out.’ Well, we had a bit of an argument. Naturally I wanted to see; but he was as obstinate as a mule, and suddenly I had come over as tired as a dog⁠—he tired me out. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I won’t look at you,’ and turned towards the mirror, on the wardrobe, by the bed.

“He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in the looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went his arms and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush came to the last gesture of all⁠—you stand erect and open out your arms⁠—and so, don’t you know, he stood. And then he didn’t! He didn’t! He wasn’t! I wheeled round from the looking-glass to him. There was nothing, I was alone, with the flaring candles and a staggering mind. What had happened? Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming?⁠ ⁠… And then, with an absurd note of finality about it, the clock upon the landing discovered the moment was ripe for striking one. So!⁠—Ping! And I was as grave and sober as a judge, with all my champagne and whisky gone into the vast serene. Feeling queer, you know⁠—confoundedly queer! Queer! Good Lord!”

He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. “That’s all that happened,” he said.

“And then you went to bed?” asked Evans.

“What else was there to do?”

I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something, something perhaps in Clayton’s voice and manner, that hampered our desire.

“And about these passes?” said Sanderson.

“I believe I could do them now.”

“Oh!” said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to grub the dottel out of the bowl of his clay.

“Why don’t you do them now?” said Sanderson, shutting his penknife with a click.

“That’s what I’m going to do,” said Clayton.

“They won’t work,” said Evans.

“If they do⁠—” I suggested.

“You know, I’d rather you didn’t,” said Wish, stretching out his legs.

“Why?” asked Evans.

“I’d rather he didn’t,” said Wish.

“But he hasn’t got ’em right,” said Sanderson, plugging too much tobacco in his pipe.

“All the same, I’d rather he didn’t,” said Wish.

We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those gestures was like mocking a serious matter. “But you don’t believe⁠—?” I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing something in his mind. “I do⁠—more than half, anyhow, I do,” said Wish.

“Clayton,” said I, “you’re too good a liar for us. Most of it was all right. But that disappearance⁠ ⁠… happened to be convincing. Tell us, it’s a tale of cock and bull.”

He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug, and faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and then for all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall, with an intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level of his eyes and so began⁠ ⁠…

Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings, which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton’s motions with a singular interest in his reddish eye. “That’s not bad,” he said, when it was done. “You really do, you know, put things together, Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there’s one little detail out.”

“I know,” said Clayton. “I believe I could tell you which.”

“Well?”

“This,” said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing and thrust of the hands.

“Yes.”

“That, you know, was what he couldn’t get right,” said Clayton. “But how do you⁠—?”

“Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don’t understand at all,” said Sanderson, “but just that phase⁠—I do.” He reflected.