He stared at this in amazement, It was an empty bandage—a bandage properly tied, but quite empty. He would have advanced to grasp it, but a touch arrested him and a voice speaking quite close to him.

“Kemp!” said the Voice.

“Eh?” said Kemp, with his mouth open.

“Keep your nerve,” said the Voice. “I’m an Invisible Man.”

Kemp made no answer for a space, simply stared at the bandage. “Invisible Man?” he said.

“I am an Invisible Man,” repeated the Voice.

The story he had been active to ridicule[4] only that morning rushed through Kemp’s brain. He does not appear to have been either very much frightened or very greatly surprised at the moment. Realisation came later.

“I thought it was all a lie,” he said. The thought uppermost in his mind was the reiterated arguments of the morning. “Have you a bandage on?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the Invisible Man.

“Oh!” said Kemp, and then roused himself. “I say!” he said. “But this is nonsense. It’s some trick.” He stepped forward suddenly and his hand, extended towards the bandage, met invisible fingers.

He recoiled at the touch, and his colour changed.

“Keep steady, Kemp, for God’s sake! I want help badly. Stop!”

The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it. “Kemp!” cried the Voice. “Kemp, keep steady!” and the grip tightened.

A frantic desire to free himself took possession of Kemp. The hand of the bandaged arm gripped his shoulder, and he was suddenly tripped and flung backwards upon the bed. He opened his mouth to shout, and the corner of the sheet was thrust between his teeth. The Invisible Man had him down grimly, but his arms were free, and he struck and tried to kick savagely.

“Listen to reason, will you?” said the Invisible Man, sticking to him in spite of a pounding in the ribs. “By heaven, you’ll madden me in a minute!

“Lie still, you fool!” bawled the Invisible Man in Kemp’s ear.

Kemp struggled for another moment, and then lay still.

“If you shout, I’ll smash your face,” said the Invisible Man, relieving his mouth. “I’m an Invisible Man. It is no foolishness and no magic. I am really an Invisible Man. And I want your help. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you behave like a frantic rustic I must. Don’t you remember me, Kemp? Griffin, of University College.”[5]

“Let me get up,” said Kemp. “I’ll stop where I am. And let me sit quiet for a minute.”

He sat up and felt his neck.

“I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself invisible. I am just an ordinary man—a man you have known—made invisible.”

“Griffin?” said Kemp.

“Griffin,” answered the Voice. “A younger student than you were, almost an albino,[7] six feet high, and broad—with a pink and white face and red eyes, who won the medal for chemistry.”

“I’m confused,” said Kemp. “My brain is rioting. What has this to do with Griffin?”

“I am Griffin.”

Kemp thought. “It’s horrible,” he said. “But what devilry must happen to make a man invisible?”

“It’s no devilry. It’s a process, sane and intelligible enough—”

“It’s horrible!” said Kemp. “How on earth—?”

“It’s horrible enough. But I’m wounded and in pain, and tired… Great God! Kemp, you are a man. Take it steady. Give me some food and drink, and let me sit down here.”

Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a basket chair dragged along the floor and come to rest near the bed. It creaked, and the seat was depressed a quarter of an inch or so. He rubbed his eyes and felt his neck again. “This beats ghosts,” he said, and laughed stupidly.

“That’s better. Thank heaven, you’re getting sensible!”

“Or silly,” said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes.

“Give me some whisky. I’m near dead.”

“I didn’t feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into you? There! All right. Whisky… Here. Where shall I give it you?”

The chair creaked, and Kemp felt the glass drawn away from him. He let it go by an effort; his instinct was all against it. It came to rest poised twenty inches above the front edge of the chair. He stared at it in infinite perplexity.

“This is—this must be—hypnotism. You must have suggested you are invisible.”

“Nonsense!” said the Voice.

“It’s frantic!”

“Listen to me.”

“I demonstrated conclusively this morning,” began Kemp, “that invisibility—”

“Never mind what you’ve demonstrated! I’m starving,” said the Voice, “and the night is chilly to a man without clothes.”

“Food?” said Kemp.

The tumbler of whisky tilted itself. “Yes,” said the Invisible Man, rapping it down. “Have you got a dressing–gown?”

Kemp made some exclamation in an undertone. He walked to a wardrobe, and produced a robe of dingy scarlet. “This do?”[7] he asked. It was taken from him. It hung limp for a moment in mid–air, fluttered weirdly, stood full and decorous buttoning itself, and sat down in his chair.

“Drawers, socks, slippers would be a comfort,” said the Unseen curtly. “And food.”

“Anything. But this is the insanest thing I was ever in, in my life!”

He turned out his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest.

“Never mind knives,” said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid–air with a sound of gnawing.

“I always like to get something about me[8] before I eat,” said the Invisible Man, with a full mouth, eating greedily. “Queer fancy.”

“I suppose that wrist is all right?” said Kemp.

“Trust me,” said the Invisible Man.

“Of all the strange and wonderful—”

“Exactly. But it’s odd I should blunder into your house to get my bandaging. My first stroke of luck! Anyhow, I meant to sleep in this house to–night. You must stand that! It’s a filthy nuisance, my blood showing, isn’t it? Quite a clot over there. Gets visible as it coagulates, I see. It’s only the living tissue I’ve changed, and only for as long as I’m alive… I’ve been in the house three hours.”

“But how’s it done ?” began Kemp, in a tone of exasperation. “Confound it! The whole business—it’s unreasonable from beginning to end.”

“Quite reasonable,” said the Invisible Man; "perfectly reasonable.”

He reached over and secured the whisky bottle. Kemp stared at the devouring dressing–gown. A ray of candlelight penetrating a torn patch in the right shoulder made a triangle of light under the left ribs.

“What were the shots?” he asked. “How did the shooting begin?”

“There was a fool of a man—a sort of confederate of mine, curse him!—who tried to steal my money. Has done so.”

“Is he invisible, too?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“Can’t I have some more to eat before I tell all that? I’m hungry—in pain. And you want me to tell stories!”

Kemp got up. “You didn’t do any shooting?” he asked.

“Not me,” said his visitor. “Some fool I’d never seen fired at random. A lot of them got scared. They all got scared at me. Curse them! I say—I want more to eat than this, Kemp.”

“I’ll see what there is more to eat downstairs,” said Kemp. “Not much, I’m afraid.”

After he had done eating—and he made a heavy meal —the Invisible Man demanded a cigar. He bit the end savagely, before Kemp could find a knife, and cursed when the outer leaf loosened.

It was strange to see him smoking: his mouth and throat, pharynx and nares,[9] became visible as a sort of whirling smoke cast.

“This blessed gift of smoking,” he said, and puffed vigorously. “I’m lucky to have fallen upon you, Kemp. You must help me. Fancy tumbling on you just now! I’m in a devilish scrape—[10] I’ve been mad, I think. The things I have been through![11] But we will do things yet, let me tell you.”