The Greatest Sci-Fi Works of H. G. Wells. H. G. Wells
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hands and arms, and jerked his head about and buzzed. He buzzed like something electric. You never heard such buzzing. And ever and again he cleared his throat with a most extraordinary noise.
There had been rain, and that spasmodic walk of his was enhanced by the extreme slipperiness of the footpath. Exactly as he came against the sun he stopped, pulled out a watch, hesitated. Then with a sort of convulsive gesture he turned and retreated with every manifestation of haste, no longer gesticulating, but going with ample strides that showed the relatively large size of his feet — they were, I remember, grotesquely exaggerated in size by adhesive clay — to the best possible advantage.
This occurred on the first day of my sojourn, when my playwriting energy was at its height and I regarded the incident simply as an annoying distraction — the waste of five minutes. I returned to my scenario. But when next evening the apparition was repeated with remarkable precision, and again the next evening, and indeed every evening when rain was not falling, concentration upon the scenario became a considerable effort. “Confound the man,” I said, “one would think he was learning to be a marionette!” and for several evenings I cursed him pretty heartily. Then my annoyance gave way to amazement and curiosity. Why on earth should a man do this thing? On the fourteenth evening I could stand it no longer, and so soon as he appeared I opened the french window, crossed the verandah, and directed myself to the point where he invariably stopped.
He had his watch out as I came up to him. He had a chubby, rubicund face with reddish brown eyes — previously I had seen him only against the light. “One moment, sir,” said I as he turned. He stared. “One moment,” he said, “certainly. Or if you wish to speak to me for longer, and it is not asking too much — your moment is up — would it trouble you to accompany me?”
“Not in the least,” said I, placing myself beside him.
“My habits are regular. My time for intercourse — limited.”
“This, I presume, is your time for exercise?”
“It is. I come here to enjoy the sunset.”
“You don’t.”
“Sir?”
“You never look at it.”
“Never look at it?”
“No. I’ve watched you thirteen nights, and not once have you looked at the sunset — not once.”
He knitted his brows like one who encounters a problem.
“Well, I enjoy the sunlight — the atmosphere — I go along this path, through that gate” — he jerked his head over his shoulder — “and round — ”
“You don’t. You never have been. It’s all nonsense. There isn’t a way. Tonight for instance — ”
“Oh! tonight! Let me see. Ah! I just glanced at my watch, saw that I had already been out just three minutes over the precise half-hour, decided there was not time to go round, turned — ”
“You always do.”
He looked at me — reflected. “Perhaps I do, now I come to think of it. But what was it you wanted to speak to me about?”
“Why, this!”
“This?”
“Yes. Why do you do it? Every night you come making a noise — ”
“Making a noise?”
“Like this.” I imitated his buzzing noise. He looked at me, and it was evident the buzzing awakened distaste. “Do I do that?” he asked.
“Every blessed evening.”
“I had no idea.”
He stopped dead. He regarded me gravely. “Can it be,” he said, “that I have formed a Habit?”
“Well, it looks like it. Doesn’t it?”
He pulled down his lower lip between finger and thumb. He regarded a puddle at his feet.
“My mind is much occupied,” he said. “And you want to know why! Well, sir, I can assure you that not only do I not know why I do these things, but I did not even know I did them. Come to think, it is just as you say; I never have been beyond that field…. And these things annoy you?”
For some reason I was beginning to relent towards him. “Not annoy,” I said. “But — imagine yourself writing a play!”
“I couldn’t.”
“Well, anything that needs concentration.”
“Ah!” he said, “of course,” and meditated. His expression became so eloquent of distress, that I relented still more. After all, there is a touch of aggression in demanding of a man you don’t know why he hums on a public footpath.
“You see,” he said weakly, “it’s a habit.”
“Oh, I recognise that.”
“I must stop it.”
“But not if it puts you out. After all, I had no business — it’s something of a liberty.”
“Not at all, sir,” he said, “not at all. I am greatly indebted to you. I should guard myself against these things. In future I will. Could I trouble you — once again? That noise?”
“Something like this,” I said. “Zuzzoo, zuzzoo. But really, you know — ”
“I am greatly obliged to you. In fact, I know I am getting absurdly absentminded. You are quite justified, sir — perfectly justified. Indeed, I am indebted to you. The thing shall end. And now, sir, I have already brought you farther than I should have done.”
“I do hope my impertinence — ”
“Not at all, sir, not at all.”
We regarded each other for a moment. I raised my hat and wished him a good evening. He responded convulsively, and so we went our ways.
At the stile I looked back at his receding figure. His bearing had changed remarkably, he seemed limp, shrunken. The contrast with his former gesticulating, zuzzoing self took me in some absurd way as pathetic. I watched him out of sight. Then wishing very heartily I had kept to my own business, I returned to my bungalow and my play.
The next evening I saw nothing of him, nor the next. But he was very much in my mind, and it had occurred to me that as a sentimental comic character he might serve a useful purpose in the development of my plot. The third day he called upon me.
For a time I was puzzled to think what had brought him. He made indifferent conversation in the most formal way, then abruptly he came to business. He wanted to buy me out of my bungalow.
“You see,” he said, “I don’t blame you in the least, but you’ve destroyed a habit, and it disorganises my day. I’ve walked past here for years — years. No doubt I’ve hummed…. You’ve made all that impossible!”
I suggested he might try some other direction.
“No. There is no other direction. This is the only one. I’ve inquired. And now — every afternoon at four — I come to a dead wall.”
“But, my dear sir, if the thing is so important to you — ”
“It’s vital. You see, I’m — I’m an investigator — I am engaged in a scientific research. I live — ” he paused and seemed to think. “Just over there,” he said, and pointed suddenly dangerously near my eye. “The house with white chimneys you see just over the trees. And my circumstances are abnormal — abnormal. I am on the point of completing one of the most important — demonstrations — I can assure you one of the most important demonstrations that have ever been made. It requires constant thought, constant mental ease and activity. And the afternoon was my brightest time! — effervescing with new ideas — new points of view.”
“But why not come by still?”