Jaw-dropping: 😯 Florida man "hacks" gas pump and gets away with it

When a Florida dad of two pulled up to a gas pump, he decided to take matters into his own hands. With a daring hack, he was able to pay for gas and leave onlookers stunned.   [IMH - logotype](   [logo - IMH]( Dеаr Rеаder, Whеn a Flоrida dad of twо pulled up tо a gas pump, he decided to take matters into his own hands. With a daring hack, he was able to pау fоr gas and lеаve onlооkers stunned. And he came down the steps towards the tail of the cart as if to lay hands on the smaller crate. No sooner had Fearenside's dog caught sight of him, however, than it began to bristle and growl savagely, and when he rushed down the steps it gave an undecided hop, and then sprang straight at his hand. "Whup!" cried Hall, jumping back, for he was no hero with dogs, and Fearenside howled, "Lie down!" and snatched his whip. They saw the dog's teeth had slipped the hand, heard a kick, saw the dog execute a flanking jump and get home on the stranger's leg, and heard the rip of his trousering. Then the finer end of Fearenside's whip reached his property, and the dog, yelping with dismay, retreated under the wheels of the waggon. It was all the business of a swift half-minute. No one spoke, everyone shouted. The stranger glanced swiftly at his torn glove and at his leg, made as if he would stoop to the latter, then turned and rushed swiftly up the steps into the inn. They heard him go headlong across the passage and up the uncarpeted stairs to his bedroom. "You brute, you!" said Fearenside, climbing off the waggon with his whip in his hand, while the dog watched him through the wheel. "Come here," said Fearenside—"You'd better." Hall had stood gaping. "He wuz bit," said Hall. "I'd better go and see to en," and he trotted after the stranger. He met Mrs. Hall in the passage. "Carrier's darg," he said "bit en." He went straight upstairs, and the stranger's door being ajar, he pushed it open and was entering without any ceremony, being of a naturally sympathetic turn of mind. The blind was down and the room dim. He caught a glimpse of a most singular thing, what seemed a handless arm waving towards him, and a face of three huge indeterminate spots on white, very like the face of a pale pansy. Then he was struck violently in the chest, hurled back, and the door slammed in his face and locked. It was so rapid that it gave him no time to observe. A waving of indecipherable shapes, a blow, and a concussion. There he stood on the dark little landing, wondering what it might be that he had seen. A couple of minutes after, he rejoined the little group that had formed outside the "Coach and Horses." There was Fearenside telling about it all over again for the second time; there was Mrs. Hall saying his dog didn't have no business to bite her guests; there was Huxter, the general dealer from over the road, interrogative; and Sandy Wadgers from the forge, judicial; besides women and children, all of them saying fatuities: "Wouldn't let en bite me, I knows"; "'Tasn't right have such dargs"; "Whad 'e bite 'n for, then?" and so forth. [gas hack]( As a child, Murphy was a loner with mood swings and an explosive temper.[10] He grew up in northeastern Texas around the towns of Farmersville, Greenville, and Celeste, where he attended elementary school.[11] His father drifted in and out of the family's life and eventually deserted them. Murphy dropped out of school in fifth grade and got a job picking cotton for a dollar a day (equivalent to $20 in 2021) to help support his family; he also became skilled with a rifle, hunting small game to help feed them. After his mother died of endocarditis and pneumonia[12] in 1941, he worked at a radio repair shop and at a combination general store, garage and gas station in Greenville.[13] Hunt County authorities placed his three youngest siblings in Boles Children's Home,[14] a Christian orphanage in Quinlan. After the war, he bought a house in Farmersville for his eldest sister Corinne and her husband, Poland Burns. His other siblings briefly shared the home.[15] The loss of his mother stayed with Murphy throughout his life. He later stated: She died when I was sixteen. She had the most beautiful hair I've ever seen. It reached almost to the floor. She rarely talked; and always seemed to be searching for something. What it was I don't know. We didn't discuss our feelings. But when she passed away, she took something of me with her. It seems I've been searching for it ever since.[16] World War II service Main article: Military career of Audie Murphy Murphy had always wanted to be a soldier. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he tried to enlist,[13] but the Army, Navy and Marine Corps all turned him down for being underweight and underage. After his sister provided an affidavit that falsified his birth date by a year, he was accepted by the U.S. Army on 30 June 1942.[ALM 1][ALM 3] After basic training at Camp Wolters,[21] he was sent to Fort Meade for advanced infantry training.[22] During basic training, he earned the Marksman Badge with Rifle Component Bar and Expert Badge with Bayonet Component Bar.[23] Mediterranean Theater Allied landing in Sicily, Licata Sector Joss Beach Mollarella Poliscia, Marker erected 10 July 2011 Murphy was shipped to Casablanca in French Morocco on 20 February 1943. He was assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, which trained under the command of Major General Lucian Truscott.[24][25] After the 13 May surrender of the Axis forces in French Tunisia,[26] the division was put in charge of the prisoners.[27] He participated as a platoon messenger with his division at Arzew in Algeria in rigorous training for the Allied assault landings in Sicily.[28] Murphy was promoted to private first class on 7 May and corporal on 15 July.[29][30] When the 3rd Infantry landed at Licata, Sicily, on 10 July, Murphy was a division runner.[31][32] On a scouting patrol, he killed two fleeing Italian officers near Canicattì.[33] Sidelined with illness for a week when Company B arrived in Palermo on 20 July,[34] he rejoined them when they were assigned to a hillside location protecting a machine-gun emplacement, while the rest of the 3rd Infantry Division fought at San Fratello en route to the Allied capture of the transit port of Messina.[35] Murphy participated in the September 1943 mainland Salerno landing at Battipaglia.[36] While on a scouting party along the Volturno River, he and two other soldiers were ambushed; German machine gun fire killed one soldier. Murphy and the other survivor responded by killing five Germans with hand grenades and machine gun fire.[37] While taking part in the October Allied assault on the Volturno Line,[36][38] near Mignano Monte Lungo Hill 193, he and his company repelled an attack by seven German soldiers, killing three and taking four prisoner.[39] Murphy was promoted to sergeant on 13 December.[40] In January 1944, Murphy was promoted to staff sergeant.[40] He was hospitalized in Naples with malaria on 21 January and was unable to participate in the initial landing at the Anzio beachhead.[41] He returned on 29 January and participated in the First Battle of Cisterna,[42][43] and was made a platoon sergeant in Company B following the battle.[44] He returned with the 3rd Division to Anzio, where they remained four months.[45] Taking shelter from the weather in an abandoned farmhouse on 2 March, Murphy and his platoon killed the crew of a passing German tank.[46] He then crawled out alone close enough to destroy the tank with rifle grenades, for which he received the Bronze Star with "V" device.[47][48] Murphy continued to make scouting patrols to take German prisoners before being hospitalized for a week on 13 March with a second bout of malaria. Sixty-one infantry officers and enlisted men of Company B, 15th Infantry, including Murphy, were awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge on 8 May.[49] Murphy was with the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment during the 27–28 August offensive at Montélimar that secured the area from the Germans.[55][57] Along with the other soldiers who took part in the action, he received the Presidential Unit Citation.[58] Murphy's first Purple Heart was for a heel wound received in a mortar shell blast on 15 September 1944 in northeastern France.[59][60][61] His first Silver Star came after he killed four and wounded three at a German machine gun position on 2 October at L'Omet quarry in the Cleurie valley.[53] Three days later, Murphy crawled alone towards the Germans at L'Omet, carrying an SCR-536 radio and directing his men for an hour while the Germans fired directly at him. When his men finally took the hill, 15 Germans had been killed and 35 wounded. Murphy's actions earned him a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Silver Star.[62] He was awarded a battlefield commission to second lieutenant on 14 October, which elevated him to platoon leader.[63] While en route to Brouvelieures on 26 October, the 3rd Platoon of Company B was attacked by a German sniper group. Murphy captured two before being shot in the hip by a sniper; he returned fire and shot the sniper between the eyes. At the 3rd General Hospital at Aix-en-Provence,[64] the removal of gangrene from the wound caused partial loss of his hip muscle and kept him out of combat until January.[53] Murphy received his first Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Purple Heart for this injury.[65][66] The Colmar Pocket, 850 square miles (2,200 km2) in the Vosges Mountains, had been held by German troops since November 1944.[67] On 14 January 1945, Murphy rejoined his platoon, which had been moved to the Colmar area in December.[68] He moved with the 3rd Division on 24 January to the town of Holtzwihr, where they faced a strong German counterattack.[69] He was wounded in both legs, for which he received a second Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Purple Heart.[70] As the company awaited reinforcements on 26 January, he was made commander of Company B.[71] The Germans scored a direct hit on an M10 tank destroyer, setting it alight, forcing the crew to abandon it.[72] Murphy ordered his men to retreat to positions in the woods, remaining alone at his post, shooting his M1 carbine and directing artillery fire via his field radio while the Germans aimed fire directly at his position.[73] Murphy mounted the abandoned, burning tank destroyer and began firing its .50 caliber machine gun at the advancing Germans, killing a squad crawling through a ditch towards him.[74] For an hour, Murphy stood on the flaming tank destroyer returning German fire from foot soldiers and advancing tanks, killing or wounding 50 Germans. He sustained a leg wound during his stand, and stopped only after he ran out of ammunition. Murphy rejoined his men, disregarding his own injury, and led them back to repel the Germans. He insisted on remaining with his men while his wounds were treated.[72] For his actions that day, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.[75] The 3rd Infantry Division was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its actions at the Colmar Pocket, giving Murphy a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for the emblem.[76] On 16 February, Murphy was promoted to first lieutenant[77] and was awarded the Legion of Merit for his service from 22 January 1944 to 18 February 1945.[78] He was moved from the front lines to Regimental Headquarters and made a liaison officer.[79] Murphy in The Red Badge of Courage Universal Studios signed Murphy to a seven-year studio contract at $2,500 a week (equivalent to $28,200 in 2021).[130][131] His first film for them was as Billy the Kid in The Kid from Texas in 1950. He wrapped up that year making Sierra starring Wanda Hendrix, who by that time had become his wife,[132] and Kansas Raiders as outlaw Jesse James. Universal lent him to MGM in 1951 at a salary of $25,000[133] to play the lead of The Youth[ALM 7] in The Red Badge of Courage, directed by John Huston.[135] Murphy and Huston worked together again in the 1960 film The Unforgiven.[136] The only film Murphy made in 1952 was The Duel at Silver Creek with director Don Siegel. Murphy worked with Siegel one more time in 1958 for The Gun Runners. In 1953, he starred in Frederick de Cordova's Column South,[137] and played Jim Harvey in Nathan Juran's Tumbleweed, an adaptation of the Kenneth Perkins novel Three Were Renegades.[138][139] Director Nathan Juran also directed Gunsmoke and Drums Across the River.[140] George Marshall directed Murphy in the 1954 Destry, a remake of Destry Rides Again, based on a character created by author Max Brand.[141] Although Murphy was initially reluctant to appear as himself in To Hell and Back, the 1955 adaptation of his book directed by Jesse Hibbs, he eventually agreed;[142] it became the biggest hit in the history of Universal Studios at the time.[143][144] To help publicize the release of the film, he made guest appearances on television shows such as What's My Line?,[ALM 8] Toast of the Town,[145] and Colgate Comedy Hour.[ALM 9] The Hibbs-Murphy team proved so successful in To Hell and Back[146] that the two worked together on five subsequent films. The partnership resulted in Murphy appearing as John Phillip Clum in the 1956 western Walk the Proud Land,[147] and the non-westerns Joe Butterfly[148] and World in My Corner. They worked together for the last time in the 1958 western Ride a Crooked Trail.[149] Joseph L. Mankiewicz hired Murphy to play the titular role[ALM 10] in the 1958 film The Quiet American.[151] Murphy formed a partnership with Harry Joe Brown to make three films, starting with The Guns of Fort Petticoat (1957). The partnership fell into disagreement over the remaining two projects, and Brown filed suit against Murphy.[152] In 1957 Murphy was cast as The Utica Kid along with James Stewart and Dan Duryea in the western Night Passage.[153] Murphy was featured in three westerns in 1959: he starred opposite Sandra Dee in The Wild and the Innocent,[154] collaborated as an uncredited co-producer with Walter Mirisch on the black and white Cast a Long Shadow, and performed as a hired killer in No Name on the Bullet, a film that was well received by critics.[155] Thelma Ritter was his costar in the 1960 Startime television episode "The Man".[156] During the early 1960s, Murphy donated his time and otherwise lent his name and image for three episodes of The Big Picture television series produced by the United States Army. He received the 1960 Outstanding Civilian Service Medal for his cooperation in the episode Broken Bridge, which featured his visits to military installations in Germany, Italy, Turkey and the U.S. state of New Mexico to showcase the military's latest weaponry.[157][158] Writer Clair Huffaker wrote the 1961 screenplays for Murphy's films Seven Ways from Sundown and Posse from Hell.[159] Willard W. Willingham and his wife Mary Willingham befriended Murphy in his early days in Hollywood and worked with him on a number of projects.[160][161][162] Willard was a producer on Murphy's 1961 television series Whispering Smith,[163] and co-wrote the screenplay for Battle at Bloody Beach that year.[164] He collaborated on Bullet for a Badman[165] in 1964 and Arizona Raiders in 1965.[166] The Willinghams as a team wrote the screenplay for Gunpoint[167] as well as the script for Murphy's last starring lead in the western 40 Guns to Apache Pass in 1967.[168] Murphy made Trunk to Cairo in Israel in 1966.[169] He first met director Budd Boetticher when Murphy requested to be his boxing partner at Terry Hunt's Athletic Club.[170] He subsequently appeared in the 1951 title role of Boetticher's first western The Cimarron Kid.[171] Boetticher wrote the script in 1969 for Murphy's last film, A Time for Dying.[172] Two other projects that Murphy and Boetticher planned to collaborate on – A Horse for Mr Barnum and When There's Sumpthin' to Do – never came to fruition.[173] Personal life Murphy in 1961 Murphy married actress Wanda Hendrix in 1949.[174] Their divorce became final two years later in 1951.[175] Four days later, he married former airline stewardess Pamela Opal Lee Archer (7 October 1919/1920/1923 – 8 April 2010), with whom[176] he had two sons: Terry Michael (born 14 March 1952),[177][178] and James Shannon (born 1954).[179] Murphy bred quarter horses at the Audie Murphy Ranch in what is now Menifee, California, and the Murphy Ranch in Pima County, Arizona.[ALM 11] His horses raced at the Del Mar Racetrack, and he invested large sums of money in the hobby.[182] Murphy's gambling left his finances in a poor state. In 1968, he stated that he lost $260,000 in an Algerian oil deal and was dealing with the Internal Revenue Service over unpaid taxes.[183] In spite of his financial difficulties, Murphy refused to appear in commercials for alcohol and cigarettes, mindful of the influence he would have on the youth market.[184] In May 1970, he was arrested in Burbank, California, charged with battery and assault with intent to commit murder in a dispute with a dog trainer. He was accused of firing a shot at the man, which he denied.[185][186] Murphy was cleared of the charges.[187] Death and commemorations Main article: 1971 Colorado Aviation Aero Commander 680 crash Murphy's headstone at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia On 28 May 1971, Murphy was killed when the private plane in which he was a passenger crashed into the side of a mountain 14 nautical miles northwest of Roanoke, Virginia,[188] in conditions of rain, clouds, fog and zero visibility.[ALM 2][191] The pilot and four other passengers were also killed.[190] The aircraft was a twin-engine Aero Commander 680 flown by a pilot who had a private-pilot license and a reported 8,000 hours of flying time, but who held no instrument rating. The aircraft was recovered on 31 May.[192] After her husband's death, Pamela Murphy moved into a small apartment and got a clerk position at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles, where she remained employed for 35 years.[193] Monument at the site of the Virginia plane crash in which Audie Murphy was killed On 7 June 1971, Murphy was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.[194] In attendance were Ambassador to the U.N. George H. W. Bush, Army Chief of Staff William Westmoreland, and many of the 3rd Infantry Division.[195] Murphy's gravesite is in Section 46, headstone number 46-366-11, located across Memorial Drive from the Amphitheater. A special flagstone walkway was later constructed to accommodate the large number of people who visit to pay their respects. It is the cemetery's second most-visited gravesite, after that of President John F. Kennedy.[196] The headstones of Medal of Honor recipients buried at Arlington National Cemetery are normally decorated in gold leaf. Murphy previously requested that his stone remain plain and inconspicuous, like that of an ordinary soldier.[197] The headstone contains the birth year 1924, based upon purportedly falsified materials among his military records.[198] In 1974, a large granite marker was erected just off the Appalachian Trail at 37.364554°N 80.225748°W at 3,100' elevation, near the crash site.[199] In 1975, a court awarded Murphy's widow, Pamela, and their two children $2.5 million in damages because of the accident.[189] Civilian honors were bestowed on Murphy during his lifetime and posthumously, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[200] In 2013, Murphy was honored by his home state with the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor.[ALM 12] Songwriting Main article: List of songs written by Audie Murphy David McClure, his collaborator on the book To Hell and Back, discovered Murphy's talent for poetry during their work on the memoir when he found discarded verses in Murphy's Hollywood apartment. One of those poems, "The Crosses Grow on Anzio", appears in To Hell and Back attributed to a soldier named Kerrigan. Only two others survived, "Alone and Far Removed" and "Freedom Flies in Your Heart Like an Eagle". The latter was part of a speech Murphy had written at a 1968 dedication of the Alabama War Memorial in Montgomery, and later set to music by Scott Turner under the title "Dusty Old Helmet".[205] Murphy was a fan of country music, in particular Bob Wills and Chet Atkins, but was not a singer or musician himself.[206] Through his friend Guy Mitchell, Murphy was introduced to songwriter Scott Turner in 1961.[207][208] The two collaborated on numerous songs between 1962 and 1970, the most successful of which was "Shutters and Boards" and "When the Wind Blows in Chicago".[209] Notes Footnotes Murphy's son Terry is the President of the Audie Murphy Research Foundation, which in both its biographical sketch and Murphy Family Tree list his year of birth as 1925.[3] Murphy's date of birth has been given as both 1924 and 1925 by Murphy himself. He seemed to go back and forth on the dates for the rest of his life. His sister, Mrs. Corinne Burns, as his nearest living kin, had signed a notarized document attesting to the birth date of 20 June 1924 that Murphy put on his enlistment application, falsifying his year of birth so he could meet the U.S. Army age qualification for enlistment. Subsequently, all military records show the purportedly falsified date as his birth date.[4] His California driver's license showed a birth date of 1925.[5][6] Sources differ on the location of the plane crash. The National Transportation Safety Board press release identifies the crash site as Brushy Mountain,[188] as does the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Murphy's widow and sons.[189] Other sources state that the crash site was on Brush Mountain, which is where the Veterans of Foreign Wars memorial to Murphy has been established.[190][191] Conflicting information exists as to Murphy's date and place of enlistment. The Audie L. Murphy Memorial website has scanned documents from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration that include Corinne Burns' statement and Murphy's "Induction Record", which shows him "Enlisted at Dallas, Texas" on 30 June 1942, and the line above it says "Accepted for service at Greenville, Texas". The National Register of Historic Places Listing added the Greenville post office as historic site number 74002081 in 1974, citing it as Murphy's place of enlistment, possibly referring to the act the military termed "Accepted for service". The NRHP also shows his enlistment date as 20 June 1942 which might be the date he was accepted for service.[15][17][18][19][20] Murphy's war service was combat-related. Therefore, he did not receive the non-combat Soldier's Medal. Act of Congress (Public Law 446–69th Congress, 2 July 1926 (44 Stat. 780) established the Soldier's Medal for heroism "as defined in 10 USC 101(d), at the time of the heroic act who distinguished himself or herself by heroism not involving actual combat with the enemy.")[88] At the end of his World War II service, Murphy became known as America's most decorated soldier.[89] The Officers' Reserve Corps was originally one of several units of the United States Organized Reserve that also included the Enlisted Reserve Corps, Reserve Officers' Training Corps and the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Organized Reserve was restructured during the Korean War and renamed the United States Army Reserve. The new structure was divided into the Ready Reserve, Standby Reserve and Retired Reserve.[90][94] The exact count on the number of feature films Murphy made varies by source. The Hollywood Walk of Fame and other sources put his total number of feature films at 44.[118] Henry Fleming is the Youth in Stephen Crane's novel. In the 1951 film, Fleming is played by Murphy as the unnamed character "The Youth". However, Fleming is addressed by name when other characters are speaking to him.[134] YouTube has several uploaded versions of the 5-minute What's My Line segment that features Murphy as the mystery guest. Listed as Episode dated 3 July 1955 at IMDb 56-minute uploaded on YouTube as Audie Murphy Attends Beverly Hilton Grand Opening 1955. He appears at 28:48 and briefly talks with Hedda Hopper about how he once gave his medals away but had them replaced by the U.S. Army. Alden Pyle is the American in Graham Greene's novel. In the 1958 film, Pyle is played by Murphy as the unnamed character "The American".[150] The Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website has user-generated information on an Arizona quarter horse ranch Murphy purchased in 1956 and sold to Guy Mitchell in 1958.[180] While not stating that the use of Murphy's name and image were authorized by his estate, the website of the Menifee residential development Audie Murphy Ranch claims it is the location of the ranch Murphy owned in California.[181] Menifee was incorporated in 2008 and borders the community of Perris. The actual award was presented by Governor Rick Perry to Murphy's family on 29 October 2013 at a ceremony in Farmersville, Texas.[201][202][203][204] [Watch Video Now]( permitted. These consisted for the most part in looking very hard at the stranger whenever they met, or in asking people who had never seen the stranger, leading questions about him. But he detected nothing. Another school of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either accepted the piebald view or some modification of it; as, for instance, Silas Durgan, who was heard to assert that "if he chooses to show enself at fairs he'd make his fortune in no time," and being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with the one talent. Yet another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of accounting for everything straight away. Between these main groups there were waverers and compromisers. Sussex folk have few superstitions, and it was only after the events of early April that the thought of the supernatural was first whispered in the village. Even then it was only credited among the women folk. But whatever they thought of him, people in Iping, on the whole, agreed in disliking him. His irritability, though it might have been comprehensible to an urban brain-worker, was an amazing thing to these quiet Sussex villagers. The frantic gesticulations they surprised now and then, the headlong pace after nightfall that swept him upon them round quiet corners, the inhuman bludgeoning of all tentative advances of curiosity, the taste for twilight that led to the closing of doors, the pulling down of blinds, the extinction of candles and lamps—who could agree with such goings on? They drew aside as he passed down the village, and when he had gone by, young humourists would up with coat-collars and down with hat-brims, and go pacing nervously after him in imitation of his occult bearing. There was a song popular at that time called "The Bogey Man". Miss Statchell sang it at the schoolroom concert (in aid of the church lamps), and thereafter whenever one or two of the villagers were gathered together and the stranger appeared, a bar or so of this tune, more or less sharp or flat, was whistled in the midst of them. Also belated little children would call "Bogey Man!" after him, and make off tremulously elated. Cuss, the general practitioner, was devoured by curiosity. The bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous regard. All through April and May he coveted an opportunity of talking to the stranger, and at last, towards Whitsuntide, he could stand it no longer, but hit upon the subscription-list for a village nurse as an excuse. He was surprised to find that Mr. Hall did not know his guest's name. "He give a name," said Mrs. Hall—an assertion which was quite unfounded—"but I didn't rightly hear it." She thought it seemed so silly not to know the man's name. The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Invisible Man Author: H. G. Wells Release Date: October 7, 2004 [EBook #5230] [Last updated: May 3, 2012] Language: English *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INVISIBLE MAN *** Produced by Andrew Sly The Invisible Man A Grotesque Romance By H. G. Wells CONTENTS I The strange Man's Arrival II Mr. Teddy Henfrey's first Impressions III The thousand and one Bottles IV Mr. Cuss interviews the Stranger V The Burglary at the Vicarage VI The Furniture that went mad VII The Unveiling of the Stranger VIII In Transit IX Mr. Thomas Marvel X Mr. Marvel's Visit to Iping XI In the "Coach and Horses" XII The invisible Man loses his Temper XIII Mr. Marvel discusses his Resignation XIV At Port Stowe XV The Man who was running XVI In the "Jolly Cricketers" XVII Dr. Kemp's Visitor XVIII The invisible Man sleeps XIX Certain first Principles XX At the House in Great Portland Street XXI In Oxford Street XXII In the Emporium XXIII In Drury Lane XXIV The Plan that failed XXV The Hunting of the invisible Man XXVI The Wicksteed Murder XXVII The Siege of Kemp's House XXVIII The Hunter hunted The Epilogue CHAPTER I THE STRANGE MAN'S ARRIVAL The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to the burden he carried. He staggered into the "Coach and Horses" more dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. "A fire," he cried, "in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He stamped and shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, he took up his quarters in the inn. Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare him a meal with her own hands. A guest to stop at Iping in the wintertime was an unheard-of piece of luck, let alone a guest who was no "haggler," and she was resolved to show herself worthy of her good fortune. As soon as the bacon was well under way, and Millie, her lymphatic maid, had been brisked up a bit by a few deftly chosen expressions of contempt, she carried the cloth, plates, and glasses into the parlour and began to lay them with the utmost éclat. Although the fire was burning up briskly, she was surprised to see that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, standing with his back to her and staring out of the window at the falling snow in the yard. His gloved hands were clasped behind him, and he seemed to be lost in thought. She noticed that the melting snow that still sprinkled his shoulders dripped upon her carpet. "Can I take your hat and coat, sir?" she said, "and give them a good dry in the kitchen?" "No," he said without turning. She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her question. He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. "I prefer to keep them on," he said with emphasis, and she noticed that he wore big blue spectacles with sidelights, and had a bush side-whisker over his coat-collar that completely hid his cheeks and face. "Very well, sir," she said. "As you like. In a bit the room will be warmer." He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put down the eggs and bacon with considerable emphasis, and called rather than said to him, "Your lunch is served, sir." "Thank you," he said at the same time, and did not stir until she was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table with a certain eager quickness. As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound repeated at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a spoon being rapidly whisked round a basin. "That girl!" she said. "There! I clean forgot it. It's her being so long!" And while she herself finished mixing the mustard, she gave Millie a few verbal stabs for her excessive slowness. She had cooked the ham and eggs, laid the table, and done everything, while Millie (help indeed!) had only succeeded in delaying the mustard. And him a new guest and wanting to stay! Then she filled the mustard pot, and, putting it with a certain stateliness upon a gold and black tea-tray, carried it into the parlour. She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved quickly, so that she got but a glimpse of a white object disappearing behind the table. It would seem he was picking something from the floor. She rapped down the mustard pot on the table, and then she noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair in front of the fire, and a pair of wet boots threatened rust to her steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. "I suppose I may have them to dry now," she said in a voice that brooked no denial. "Leave the hat," said her visitor, in a muffled voice, and turning she saw he had raised his head and was sitting and looking at her. For a moment she stood gaping at him, too surprised to speak. He held a white cloth—it was a serviette he had brought with him—over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws were completely hidden, and that was the reason of his muffled voice. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall. It was the fact that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was bright, pink, and shiny just as it had been at first. He wore a dark-brown velvet jacket with a high, black, linen-lined collar turned up about his neck. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns, giving him the strangest appearance conceivable. This muffled and bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated, that for a moment she was rigid. He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his inscrutable blue glasses. "Leave the hat," he said, speaking very distinctly through the white cloth. Her nerves began to recover from the shock they had received. She placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. "I didn't know, sir," she began, "that—" and she stopped embarrassed. "Thank you," he said drily, glancing from her to the door and then at her again. "I'll have them nicely dried, sir, at once," she said, and carried his clothes out of the room. She glanced at his white-swathed head and blue goggles again as she was going out of the door; but his napkin was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she closed the door behind her, and her face was eloquent of her surprise and perplexity. "I never," she whispered. "There!" She went quite softly to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what she was messing about with now, when she got there. The visitor sat and listened to her retreating feet. He glanced inquiringly at the window before he removed his serviette, and resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the window, took another mouthful, then rose and, taking the serviette in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down to the top of the white muslin that obscured the lower panes. This left the room in a twilight. This done, he returned with an easier air to the table and his meal. "The poor soul's had an accident or an op'ration or somethin'," said Mrs. Hall. "What a turn them bandages did give me, to be sure!" She put on some more coal, unfolded the clothes-horse, and extended the traveller's coat upon this. "And they goggles! Why, he looked more like a divin' helmet than a human man!" She hung his muffler on a corner of the horse. "And holding that handkerchief over his mouth all the time. Talkin' through it! ... Perhaps his mouth was hurt too—maybe." She turned round, as one who suddenly remembers. "Bless my soul alive!" she said, going off at a tangent; "ain't you done them taters yet, Millie?" When Mrs. Hall went to clear away the stranger's lunch, her idea that his mouth must also have been cut or disfigured in the accident she supposed him to have suffered, was confirmed, for he was smoking a pipe, and all the time that she was in the room he never loosened the silk muffler he had wrapped round the lower part of his face to put the mouthpiece to his lips. Yet it was not forgetfulness, for she saw he glanced at it as it smouldered out. He sat in the corner with his back to the window-blind and spoke now, having eaten and drunk and being comfortably warmed through, with less aggressive brevity than before. The reflection of the fire lent a kind of red animation to his big spectacles they had lacked hitherto. "I have some luggage," he said, "at Bramblehurst station," and he asked her how he could have it sent. He bowed his bandaged head quite politely in acknowledgment of her explanation. "To-morrow?" he said. "There is no speedier delivery?" and seemed quite disappointed when she answered, "No." Was she quite sure? No man with a trap who would go over? Mrs. Hall, nothing loath, answered his questions and developed a conversation. "It's a steep road by the down, sir," she said in answer to the question about a trap; and then, snatching at an opening, said, "It was there a carriage was upsettled, a year ago and more. A gentleman killed, besides his coachman. Accidents, sir, happen in a moment, don't they?" But the visitor was not to be drawn so easily. "They do," he said through his muffler, eyeing her quietly through his impenetrable glasses. "But they take long enough to get well, don't they? ... There was my sister's son, Tom, jest cut his arm with a scythe, tumbled on it in the 'ayfield, and, bless me! he was three months tied up sir. You'd hardly believe it. It's regular given me a dread of a scythe, sir." "I can quite understand that," said the visitor. "He was afraid, one time, that he'd have to have an op'ration—he was that bad, sir." The visitor laughed abruptly, a bark of a laugh that he seemed to bite and kill in his mouth. "Was he?" he said. "He was, sir. And no laughing matter to them as had the doing for him, as I had—my sister being took up with her little ones so much. There was bandages to do, sir, and bandages to undo. So that if I may make so bold as to say it, sir—" "Will you get me some matches?" said the visitor, quite abruptly. "My pipe is out." Mrs. Hall was pulled up suddenly. It was certainly rude of him, after telling him all she had done. She gasped at him for a moment, and remembered the two sovereigns. She went for the matches. "Thanks," he said concisely, as she put them down, and turned his shoulder upon her and stared out of the window again. It was altogether too discouraging. Evidently he was sensitive on the topic of operations and bandages. She did not "make so bold as to say," however, after all. But his snubbing way had irritated her, and Millie had a hot time of it that afternoon. The visitor remained in the parlour until four o'clock, without giving the ghost of an excuse for an intrusion. For the most part he was quite still during that time; it would seem he sat in the growing darkness smoking in the firelight—perhaps dozing. Once or twice a curious listener might have heard him at the coals, and for the space of five minutes he was audible pacing the room. He seemed to be talking to himself. Then the armchair creaked as he sat down again. CHAPTER II MR. TEDDY HENFREY'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS At four o'clock, when it was fairly dark and Mrs. Hall was screwing up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some tea, Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber, came into the bar. "My sakes! Mrs. Hall," said he, "but this is terrible weather for thin boots!" The snow outside was falling faster. Mrs. Hall agreed, and then noticed he had his bag with him. "Now you're here, Mr. Teddy," said she, "I'd be glad if you'd give th' old clock in the parlour a bit of a look. 'Tis going, and it strikes well and hearty; but the hour-hand won't do nuthin' but point at six." And leading the way, she went across to the parlour door and rapped and entered. Her visitor, she saw as she opened the door, was seated in the armchair before the fire, dozing it would seem, with his bandaged head drooping on one side. The only light in the room was the red glow from the fire—which lit his eyes like adverse railway signals, but left his downcast face in darkness—and the scanty vestiges of the day that came in through the open door. Everything was ruddy, shadowy, and indistinct to her, the more so since she had just been lighting the bar lamp, and her eyes were dazzled. But for a second it seemed to her that the man she looked at had an enormous mouth wide open—a vast and incredible mouth that swallowed the whole of the lower portion of his face. It was the sensation of a moment: the white-bound head, the monstrous goggle eyes, and this huge yawn below it. Then he stirred, started up in his chair, put up his hand. She opened the door wide, so that the room was lighter, and she saw him more clearly, with the muffler held up to his face just as she had seen him hold the serviette before. The shadows, she fancied, had tricked her. "Would you mind, sir, this man a-coming to look at the clock, sir?" she said, recovering from the momentary shock. "Look at the clock?" he said, staring round in a drowsy manner, and speaking over his hand, and then, getting more fully awake, "certainly." Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp, and he rose and stretched himself. Then came the light, and Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was confronted by this bandaged person. He was, he says, "taken aback." "Good afternoon," said the stranger, regarding him—as Mr. Henfrey says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles—"like a lobster." "I hope," said Mr. Henfrey, "that it's no intrusion." "None whatever," said the stranger. "Though, I understand," he said turning to Mrs. Hall, "that this room is really to be mine for my own private use." Directly the first crate was, in accordance with his directions, carried into the parlour, the stranger flung himself upon it with extraordinary eagerness, and began to unpack it, scattering the straw with an utter disregard of Mrs. Hall's carpet. And from it he began to produce bottles—little fat bottles containing powders, small and slender bottles containing coloured and white fluids, fluted blue bottles labeled Poison, bottles with round bodies and slender necks, large green-glass bottles, large white-glass bottles, bottles with glass stoppers and frosted labels, bottles with fine corks, bottles with bungs, bottles with wooden caps, wine bottles, salad-oil bottles—putting them in rows on the chiffonnier, on the mantel, on the table under the window, round the floor, on the bookshelf—everywhere. The chemist's shop in Bramblehurst could not boast half so many. Quite a sight it was. Crate after crate yielded bottles, until all six were empty and the table high with straw; the only things that came out of these crates besides the bottles were a number of test-tubes and a carefully packed balance. And directly the crates were unpacked, the stranger went to the window and set to work, not troubling in the least about the litter of straw, the fire which had gone out, the box of books outside, nor for the trunks and other luggage that had gone upstairs. When Mrs. Hall took his dinner in to him, he was already so absorbed in his work, pouring little drops out of the bottles into test-tubes, that he did not hear her until she had swept away the bulk of the straw and put the tray on the table, with some little emphasis perhaps, seeing the state that the floor was in. Then he half turned his head and immediately turned it away again. But she saw he had removed his glasses; they were beside him on the table, and it seemed to her that his eye sockets were extraordinarily hollow. He put on his spectacles again, and then turned and faced her. She was about to complain of the straw on the floor when he anticipated her. "I wish you wouldn't come in without knocking," he said in the tone of abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him. "I knocked, but seemingly—" "Perhaps you did. But in my investigations—my really very urgent and necessary investigations—the slightest disturbance, the jar of a door—I must ask you—" "Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you're like that, you know. Any time." "A very good idea," said the stranger. "This stror, sir, if I might make so bold as to remark—" "Don't. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill." And he mumbled at her—words suspiciously like curses. He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite alarmed. But she was a resolute woman. "In which case, I should like to know, sir, what you consider—" "A shilling—put down a shilling. Surely a shilling's enough?" "So be it," said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginning to spread it over the table. "If you're satisfied, of course—" He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her. All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a concussion and a sound of bottles ringing together as though the table had been hit, and the smash of a bottle flung violently down, and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. Fearing "something was the matter," she went to the door and listened, not caring to knock. "I can't go on," he was raving. "I can't go on. Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! Cheated! All my life it may take me! ... Patience! Patience indeed! ... Fool! fool!" There was a noise of hobnails on the bricks in the bar, and Mrs. Hall had very reluctantly to leave the rest of his soliloquy. When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faint crepitation of his chair and the occasional clink of a bottle. It was all over; the stranger had resumed work. When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the room under the concave mirror, and a golden stain that had been carelessly wiped. She called attention to it. "Put it down in the bill," snapped her visitor. "For God's sake don't worry me. If there's damage done, put it down in the bill," and he went on ticking a list in the exercise book before him. Out of her hearing there was a view largely entertained that he was a criminal trying to escape from justice by wrapping himself up so as to conceal himself altogether from the eye of the police. This idea sprang from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey. No crime of any magnitude dating from the middle or end of February was known to have occurred. Elaborated in the imagination of Mr. Gould, the probationary assistant in the National School, this theory took the form that the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing explosives, and he resolved to undertake such detective operations as his time permitted. These consisted for the most part in looking very hard at the stranger whenever they met, or in asking people who had never seen the stranger, leading questions about him. But he detected nothing. Another school of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either accepted the piebald view or some modification of it; as, for instance, Silas Durgan, who was heard to assert that "if he chooses to show enself at fairs he'd make his fortune in no time," and being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with the one talent. Yet another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of accounting for everything straight away. Between these main groups there were waverers and compromisers. Sussex folk have few superstitions, and it was only after the events of early April that the thought of the supernatural was first whispered in the village. Even then it was only credited among the women folk. But whatever they thought of him, people in Iping, on the whole, agreed in disliking him. His irritability, though it might have been comprehensible to an urban brain-worker, was an amazing thing to these quiet Sussex villagers. The frantic gesticulations they surprised now and then, the headlong pace after nightfall that swept him upon them round quiet corners, the inhuman bludgeoning of all tentative advances of curiosity, the taste for twilight that led to the closing of doors, the pulling down of blinds, the extinction of candles and lamps—who could agree with such goings on? They drew aside as he passed down the village, and when he had gone by, young humourists would up with coat-collars and down with hat-brims, and go pacing nervously after him in imitation of his occult bearing. There was a song popular at that time called "The Bogey Man". Miss Statchell sang it at the schoolroom concert (in aid of the church lamps), and thereafter whenever one or two of the villagers were gathered together and the stranger appeared, a bar or so of this tune, more or less sharp or flat, was whistled in the midst of them. Also belated little children would call "Bogey Man!" after him, and make off tremulously elated. Cuss, the general practitioner, was devoured by curiosity. The bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous regard. All through April and May he coveted an opportunity of talking to the stranger, and at last, towards Whitsuntide, he could stand it no longer, but hit upon the subscription-list for a village nurse as an excuse. He was surprised to find that Mr. Hall did not know his guest's name. "He give a name," said Mrs. Hall—an assertion which was quite unfounded—"but I didn't rightly hear it." She thought it seemed so silly not to know the man's name. Cuss rapped at the parlour door and entered. There was a fairly audible imprecation from within. "Pardon my intrusion," said Cuss, and then the door closed and cut Mrs. Hall off from the rest of the conversation. She could hear the murmur of voices for the next ten minutes, then a cry of surprise, a stirring of feet, a chair flung aside, a bark of laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face white, his eyes staring over his shoulder. He left the door open behind him, and without looking at her strode across the hall and went down the steps, and she heard his feet hurrying along the road. He carried his hat in his hand. She stood behind the door, looking at the open door of the parlour. Then she heard the stranger laughing quietly, and then his footsteps came across the room. She could not see his face where she stood. The parlour door slammed, and the place was silent again. Cuss went straight up the village to Bunting the vicar. "Am I mad?" Cuss began abruptly, as he entered the shabby little study. "Do I look like an insane person?" "What's happened?" said the vicar, putting the ammonite on the loose sheets of his forth-coming sermon. "That chap at the inn—" "Well?" "Give me something to drink," said Cuss, and he sat down. When his nerves had been steadied by a glass of cheap sherry—the only drink the good vicar had available—he told him of the interview he had just had. "Went in," he gasped, "and began to demand a subscription for that Nurse Fund. He'd stuck his hands in his pockets as I came in, and he sat down lumpily in his chair. Sniffed. I told him I'd heard he took an interest in scientific things. He said yes. Sniffed again. Kept on sniffing all the time; evidently recently caught an infernal cold. No wonder, wrapped up like that! I developed the nurse idea, and all the while kept my eyes open. Bottles—chemicals—everywhere. Balance, test-tubes in stands, and a smell of—evening primrose. Would he subscribe? Said he'd consider it. Asked him, point-blank, was he researching. Said he was. A long research? Got quite cross. 'A damnable long research,' said he, blowing the cork out, so to speak. 'Oh,' said I. And out came the grievance. The man was just on the boil, and my question boiled him over. He had been given a prescription, most valuable prescription—what for he wouldn't say. Was it medical? 'Damn you! What are you fishing after?' I apologised. Dignified sniff and cough. He resumed. He'd read it. Five ingredients. Put it down; turned his head. Draught of air from window lifted the paper. Swish, rustle. He was working in a room with an open fireplace, he said. Saw a flicker, and there was the prescription burning and lifting chimneyward. Rushed towards it just as it whisked up the chimney. So! Just at that point, to illustrate his story, out came his arm." "Well?" "No hand—just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, that's a deformity! Got a cork arm, I suppose, and has taken it off. Then, I thought, there's something odd in that. What the devil keeps that sleeve up and open, if there's nothing in it? There was nothing in it, I tell you. Nothing down it, right down to the joint. I could see right down it to the elbow, and there was a glimmer of light shining through a tear of the cloth. 'Good God!' I said. Then he stopped. Stared at me with those black goggles of his, and then at his sleeve." "Well?" "That's all. He never said a word; just glared, and put his sleeve back in his pocket quickly. 'I was saying,' said he, 'that there was the prescription burning, wasn't I?' Interrogative cough. 'How the devil,' said I, 'can you move an empty sleeve like that?' 'Empty sleeve?' 'Yes,' said I, 'an empty sleeve.' "'It's an empty sleeve, is it? You saw it was an empty sleeve?' He stood up right away. I stood up too. He came towards me in three very slow steps, and stood quite close. Sniffed venomously. I didn't flinch, though I'm hanged if that bandaged knob of his, and those blinkers, aren't enough to unnerve any one, coming quietly up to you. "'You said it was an empty sleeve?' he said. 'Certainly,' I said. At staring and saying nothing a barefaced man, unspectacled, starts scratch. Then very quietly he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket again, and raised his arm towards me as though he would show it to me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it. Seemed an age. 'Well?' said I, clearing my throat, 'there's nothing in it.' "Had to say something. I was beginning to feel frightened. I could see right down it. He extended it straight towards me, slowly, slowly—just like that—until the cuff was six inches from my face. Queer thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that! And then—" "Well?" "Something—exactly like a finger and thumb it felt—nipped my nose." Bunting began to laugh. "There wasn't anything there!" said Cuss, his voice running up into a shriek at the "there." "It's all very well for you to laugh, but I tell you I was so startled, I hit his cuff hard, and turned around, and cut out of the room—I left him—" Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic. He turned round in a helpless way and took a second glass of the excellent vicar's very inferior sherry. "When I hit his cuff," said Cuss, "I tell you, it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there wasn't an arm! There wasn't the ghost of an arm!" Mr. Bunting thought it over. He looked suspiciously at Cuss. "It's a most remarkable story," he said. He looked very wise and grave indeed. "It's really," said Mr. Bunting with judicial emphasis, "a most remarkable story." Аndrew Мiller, Мanaging Editor, Jeff Сlark Тrader   [IMH logo]( This editorial email with educational news was sent to {EMAIL}. Inception Media, LLC appreciates your comments and inquiries. Please keep in mind, that Inception Media, LLC are not permitted to provide individualized financial advise[.]( This email is not financial advice and any investment decision you make is solely your responsibility. Please add our email address to your contact book (or mark as important) to guarantee that our emails continue to reach your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( Feel free to contact us toll free Domestic/International: [+17072979173](tel:+17072979173) Mon–Fri, 9am–5pm ET, or email us support@investorsmediahub.com. 2023 Inception Media, LLC . 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