od heavily on his finger. He yelled,
struggled to regain his feet, was knocked against and thrown on all
fours again, and became aware that he was involved not in a capture,
but a rout. Everyone was running back to the village. He rose again
and was hit severely behind the ear. He staggered and set off back
to the "Coach and Horses" forthwith, leaping over the deserted
Huxter, who was now sitting up, on his way.

Behind him as he was halfway up the inn steps he heard a sudden
yell of rage, rising sharply out of the confusion of cries, and a
sounding smack in someone's face. He recognised the voice as that
of the Invisible Man, and the note was that of a man suddenly
infuriated by a painful blow.

In another moment Mr. Cuss was back in the parlour. "He's coming
back, Bunting!" he said, rushing in. "Save yourself!"

Mr. Bunting was standing in the window engaged in an attempt to
clothe himself in the hearth-rug and a _West Surrey Gazette_. "Who's
coming?" he said, so startled that his costume narrowly escaped
disintegration.

"Invisible Man," said Cuss, and rushed on to the window. "We'd
better clear out from here! He's fighting mad! Mad!"

In another moment he was out in the yard.

"Good heavens!" said Mr. Bunting, hesitating between two horrible
alternatives. He heard a frightful struggle in the passage of the
inn, and his decision was made. He clambered out of the window,
adjusted his costume hastily, and fled up the village as fast as
his fat little legs would carry him.

From the moment when the Invisible Man screamed with rage and Mr.
Bunting made his memorable flight up the village, it became
impossible to give a consecutive account of affairs in Iping.
Possibly the Invisible Man's original intention was simply to cover
Marvel's retreat with the clothes and books. But his temper, at no
time very good, seems to have gone completely at some chance blow,
and forthwith he set to smiting and overthrowing, for the mere
satisfaction of hurting.

You must figure the street full of running figures, of doors
slamming and fights for hiding-places. You must figure the tumult
suddenly striking on the unstable equilibrium of old Fletcher's
planks and two chairs--with cataclysmic results. You must figure
an appalled couple caught dismally in a swing. And then the whole
tumultuous rush has passed and the Iping street with its gauds and
flags is deserted save for the still raging unseen, and littered
with cocoanuts, ove