THIRTY STRANGE STORIES - Novels
by H. G. Wells 
in
English Short Stories
THE STRANGE ORCHID The buying of orchids always has in it a certain speculative flavour. You have before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue, and for the rest you must trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your good-luck, as your taste may incline. The plant may be moribund or dead, or it may be just a respectable purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps—for the thing has happened again and again—there slowly unfolds before the delighted eyes of the happy purchaser, day after day, some new variety, some novel richness, a strange twist of the labellum,
1 THE STRANGE ORCHID The buying of orchids always has in it a certain speculative flavour. You have before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue, and for the rest you must trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or ...Read Moregood-luck, as your taste may incline. The plant may be moribund or dead, or it may be just a respectable purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps—for the thing has happened again and again—there slowly unfolds before the delighted eyes of the happy purchaser, day after day, some new variety, some novel richness, a strange twist of the labellum,
2 ÆPYORNIS ISLAND The man with the scarred face leant over the table and looked at my bundle. “Orchids?” he asked. “A few,” I said. “Cypripediums?” he said. “Chiefly,” said I. “Anything new?—I thought not. I did these islands ...Read Moreyears ago. If you find anything new here—well, it’s brand new. I didn’t leave much.” “I’m not a collector,” said I. “I was young then,” he went on. “Lord! how I used to fly round.” He seemed to take my measure. “I was in the East Indies two years, and in Brazil seven. Then I went to Madagascar.” “I know
3 THE PLATTNER STORY Whether the story of Gottfried Plattner is to be credited or not, is a pretty question in the value of evidence. On the one hand, we have seven witnesses—to be perfectly exact, we have six ...Read Morea half pairs of eyes, and one undeniable fact; and on the other we have—what is it?—prejudice, common sense, the inertia of opinion. Never were there seven more honest-seeming witnesses; never was there a more undeniable fact than the inversion of Gottfried Plattner’s anatomical structure, and—never was there a more preposterous story than the one they have to tell! The
4 THE ARGONAUTS OF THE AIR One saw Monson’s flying-machine from the windows of the trains passing either along the South-Western main line or along the line between Wimbledon and Worcester Park,—to be more exact, one saw the huge ...Read Morewhich limited the flight of the apparatus. They rose over the tree-tops, a massive alley of interlacing iron and timber, and an enormous web of ropes and tackle, extending the best part of two miles. From the Leatherhead branch this alley was foreshortened and in part hidden by a hill with villas; but from the main line one had it
5 THE STORY OF THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM I set this story down, not expecting it will be believed, but, if possible, to prepare a way of escape for the next victim. He, perhaps, may profit by my misfortune. ...Read Moreown case, I know, is hopeless, and I am now in some measure prepared to meet my fate. My name is Edward George Eden. I was born at Trentham, in Staffordshire, my father being employed in the gardens there. I lost my mother when I was three years old, and my father when I was five, my uncle, George Eden,
6 THE STOLEN BACILLUS “This again,” said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the microscope, “is a preparation of the celebrated Bacillus of cholera—the cholera germ.” The pale-faced man peered down the microscope. He was evidently not accustomed ...Read Morethat kind of thing, and held a limp white hand over his disengaged eye. “I see very little,” he said. “Touch this screw,” said the Bacteriologist; “perhaps the microscope is out of focus for you. Eyes vary so much. Just the fraction of a turn this way or that.” “Ah! now I see,” said the visitor. “Not so very much
7 THE RED ROOM “I can assure you,” said I, “that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me.” And I stood up before the fire with my glass in my hand. “It is your own choosing,” ...Read Morethe man with the withered arm, and glanced at me askance. “Eight-and-twenty years,” said I, “I have lived, and never a ghost have I seen as yet.” The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open. “Ay,” she broke in; “and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of this house, I
8 A MOTH (GENUS UNKNOWN) Probably you have heard of Hapley—not W. T. Hapley, the son, but the celebrated Hapley, the Hapley of Periplaneta Hapliia, Hapley the entomologist. If so, you know at least of the great feud between ...Read Moreand Professor Pawkins, though certain of its consequences may be new to you. For those who have not, a word or two of explanation is necessary, which the idle reader may go over with a glancing eye, if his indolence so incline him. It is amazing how very widely diffused is the ignorance of such really important matters as this
9 IN THE ABYSS The lieutenant stood in front of the steel sphere and gnawed a piece of pine splinter. “What do you think of it, Steevens?” he asked. “It’s an idea,” said Steevens, in the tone of one ...Read Morekeeps an open mind. “I believe it will smash—flat,” said the lieutenant. “He seems to have calculated it all out pretty well,” said Steevens, still impartial. “But think of the pressure,” said the lieutenant. “At the surface of the water it’s fourteen pounds to the inch, thirty feet down it’s double that; sixty, treble; ninety, four times; nine hundred, forty
10 UNDER THE KNIFE “What if I die under it!” The thought recurred again and again as I walked home from Haddon’s. It was a purely personal question. I was spared the deep anxieties of a married man, and ...Read Moreknew there were few of my intimate friends but would find my death troublesome chiefly on account of the duty of regret. I was surprised indeed, and perhaps a little humiliated, as I turned the matter over, to think how few could possibly exceed the conventional requirement. Things came before me stripped of glamour, in a clear dry light, during
11 THE RECONCILIATION Temple had scarcely been with Findlay five minutes before he felt his old resentments, and the memory of that unforgettable wrong growing vivid again. But with the infatuation of his good resolution still upon him, he ...Read Morethe air of sham reconciliation that Findlay had welcomed so eagerly. They talked of this and that, carefully avoiding the matter of the separation. Temple at first spoke chiefly of his travels. He stood between the cabinet of minerals and the fireplace, his whiskey on the mantel-board, while Findlay sat with his chair pushed back from his writing-desk, on which
12 A SLIP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Outside the laboratory windows was a watery grey fog, and within a close warmth and the yellow light of the green-shaded gas lamps that stood two to each table down its narrow length. ...Read Moreeach table stood a couple of glass jars containing the mangled vestiges of the crayfish, mussels, frogs, and guinea-pigs, upon which the students had been working, and down the side of the room, facing the windows, were shelves bearing bleached dissections in spirit, surmounted by a row of beautifully executed anatomical drawings in white wood frames and overhanging a row
13 IN THE AVU OBSERVATORY The observatory at Avu, in Borneo, stands on the spur of the mountain. To the north rises the old crater, black against the unfathomable blue of the sky. From the little circular building, with ...Read Moremushroom dome, the slopes plunge steeply downward into the black mysteries of the tropical forest beneath. The little house in which the observer and his assistant live is about fifty yards from the observatory, and beyond this are the huts of their native attendants. Thaddy, the chief observer, was down with a slight fever. His assistant, Woodhouse, paused for a
14 THE TRIUMPHS OF A TAXIDERMIST Here are some of the secrets of taxidermy. They were told me by the taxidermist in a mood of elation. He told me them in the time between the first glass of whiskey ...Read Morethe fourth, when a man is no longer cautious and yet not drunk. We sat in his den together; his library it was, his sitting and his eating room—separated by a bead curtain, so far as the sense of sight went, from the noisome den where he plied his trade. He sat on a deck chair, and when he was
15 A DEAL IN OSTRICHES “Talking of the prices of birds, I’ve seen an ostrich that cost three hundred pounds,” said the taxidermist, recalling his youth of travel. “Three hundred pounds!” He looked at me over his spectacles. “I’ve ...Read Moreanother that was refused at four.” “No,” he said, “it wasn’t any fancy points. They was just plain ostriches. A little off colour, too—owing to dietary. And there wasn’t any particular restriction of the demand either. You’d have thought five ostriches would have ruled cheap on an East Indiaman. But the point was, one of ’em had swallowed a diamond.
16 THE RAJAH’S TREASURE Between Jehun and Bimabur on the Himalayan slopes, and between the jungles and the higher country where the pines and deodars are gathered together, ruled the petty Rajah, of whose wonderful treasure I am telling. ...Read Moregreat was the treasure, people said, for the Rajah had prospered all his days. He had found Mindapore a village, and, behold! it was a city. Below his fort of unhewn stone the flat-roofed huts of mud had multiplied; and now there sprang up houses with upstairs rooms, and the place which had once boasted no more than one buniah
17 THE STORY OF DAVIDSON’S EYES The transitory mental aberration of Sidney Davidson, remarkable enough in itself, is still more remarkable if Wade’s explanation is to be credited. It sets one dreaming of the oddest possibilities of intercommunication in ...Read Morefuture, of spending an intercalary five minutes on the other side of the world, or being watched in our most secret operations by unsuspected eyes. It happened that I was the immediate witness of Davidson’s seizure, and so it falls naturally to me to put the story upon paper. When I say that I was the immediate witness of his
18 THE CONE The night was hot and overcast, the sky redrimmed with the lingering sunset of midsummer. They sat at the open window trying to fancy the air was fresher there. The trees and shrubs of the garden ...Read Morestiff and dark; beyond in the roadway a gas lamp burnt, bright orange against the hazy blue of the evening. Further were the three lights of the railway signal against the lowering sky. The man and woman spoke to one another in low tones. “He does not suspect?” said the man, a little nervously. “Not he,” she said peevishly, as
19 THE PURPLE PILEUS Mr. Coombes was sick of life. He walked away from his unhappy home, and, sick not only of his own existence, but of everybody else’s, turned aside down Gaswork Lane to avoid the town, and, ...Read Morethe wooden bridge that goes over the canal to Starling’s Cottages, was presently alone in the damp pinewoods and out of sight and sound of human habitation. He would stand it no longer. He repeated aloud with blasphemies unusual to him that he would stand it no longer. He was a pale-faced little man, with dark eyes and a fine
20 A CATASTROPHE The little shop was not paying. The realisation came insensibly. Winslow was not the man for definite addition and subtraction and sudden discovery. He became aware of the truth in his mind gradually, as though it ...Read Morealways been there. A lot of facts had converged and led him to conviction. There was that line of cretonnes—four half pieces—untouched, save for half-a-yard sold to cover a stool. There were those shirtings at 4¾d.—Bandersnatch, in the Broadway, was selling them at 2¾d.—under cost, in fact. (Surely Bandersnatch might let a man live!) Those servants’ caps, a selling line,
21 LE MARI TERRIBLE “You are always so sympathetic,” she said; and added, reflectively, “and one can talk of one’s troubles to you without any nonsense.” I wondered dimly if she meant that as a challenge. I helped myself ...Read Morea biscuit thing that looked neither poisonous nor sandy. “You are one of the most puzzling human beings I ever met,” I said,—a perfectly safe remark to any woman under any circumstances. “Do you find me so hard to understand?” she said. “You are dreadfully complex.” I bit at the biscuit thing, and found it full of a kind of
22 THE APPLE “I must get rid of it,” said the man in the corner of the carriage, abruptly breaking the silence. Mr. Hinchcliff looked up, hearing imperfectly. He had been lost in the rapt contemplation of the college ...Read Moretied by a string to his portmanteau handles—the outward and visible sign of his newly-gained pedagogic position—in the rapt appreciation of the college cap and the pleasant anticipations it excited. For Mr. Hinchcliff had just matriculated at London University, and was going to be junior assistant at the Holmwood Grammar School—a very enviable position. He stared across the carriage at
23 THE SAD STORY OF A DRAMATIC CRITIC I was—you shall hear immediately why I am not now—Egbert Craddock Cummins. The name remains. I am still (Heaven help me!) Dramatic Critic to the “Fiery Cross.” What I shall be ...Read Morea little while I do not know. I write in great trouble and confusion of mind. I will do what I can to make myself clear in the face of terrible difficulties. You must bear with me a little. When a man is rapidly losing his own identity, he naturally finds a difficulty in expressing himself. I will make it
24 THE JILTING OF JANE As I sit writing in my study, I can hear our Jane bumping her way downstairs with a brush and dustpan. She used in the old days to sing hymn tunes, or the British ...Read Moresong for the time being, to these instruments; but latterly she has been silent and even careful over her work. Time was when I prayed with fervour for such silence, and my wife with sighs for such care, but now they have come we are not so glad as we might have anticipated we should be. Indeed, I would rejoice
25 THE LOST INHERITANCE “My uncle,” said the man with the glass eye, “was what you might call a hemi-semi-demi millionaire. He was worth about a hundred and twenty thousand. Quite. And he left me all his money.” I ...Read Moreat the shiny sleeve of his coat, and my eye travelled up to the frayed collar. “Every penny,” said the man with the glass eye, and I caught the active pupil looking at me with a touch of offence. “I’ve never had any windfalls like that,” I said, trying to speak enviously and propitiate him. “Even a legacy isn’t always
26 POLLOCK AND THE PORROH MAN It was in a swampy village on the lagoon river behind the Turner Peninsula that Pollock’s first encounter with the Porroh man occurred. The women of that country are famous for their good ...Read Moreare Gallinas with a dash of European blood that dates from the days of Vasco da Gama and the English slave-traders, and the Porroh man, too, was possibly inspired by a faint Caucasian taint in his composition. (It’s a curious thing to think that some of us may have distant cousins eating men on Sherboro Island or raiding with the
27 THE SEA RAIDERS Until the extraordinary affair at Sidmouth, the peculiar species Haploteuthis ferox was known to science only generically, on the strength of a half-digested tentacle obtained near the Azores, and a decaying body pecked by birds ...Read Morenibbled by fish, found early in 1896 by Mr. Jennings, near Land’s End. In no department of zoölogical science, indeed, are we quite so much in the dark as with regard to the deep-sea cephalopods. A mere accident, for instance, it was that led to the Prince of Monaco’s discovery of nearly a dozen new forms in the summer of
28 IN THE MODERN VEIN AN UNSYMPATHETIC LOVE STORY Of course the cultivated reader has heard of Aubrey Vair. He has published on three several occasions volumes of delicate verses,—some, indeed, border on indelicacy,—and his column “Of Things Literary” ...Read Morethe “Climax” is well known. His Byronic visage and an interview have appeared in the “Perfect Lady.” It was Aubrey Vair, I believe, who demonstrated that the humour of Dickens was worse than his sentiment, and who detected “a subtle bourgeois flavour” in Shakespeare. However, it is not generally known that Aubrey Vair has had erotic experiences as well as
29 THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS The chief attendant of the three dynamos that buzzed and rattled at Camberwell, and kept the electric railway going, came out of Yorkshire, and his name was James Holroyd. He was a practical ...Read Morebut fond of whiskey, a heavy red-haired brute with irregular teeth. He doubted the existence of the deity, but accepted Carnot’s cycle, and he had read Shakespeare and found him weak in chemistry. His helper came out of the mysterious East, and his name was Azuma-zi. But Holroyd called him Pooh-bah. Holroyd liked a nigger help because he would stand
30 THE TREASURE IN THE FOREST The canoe was now approaching the land. The bay opened out, and a gap in the white surf of the reef marked where the little river ran out to the sea; the thicker ...Read Moredeeper green of the virgin forest showed its course down the distant hill-slope. The forest here came close to the beach. Far beyond, dim and almost cloudlike in texture, rose the mountains, like suddenly frozen waves. The sea was still save for an almost imperceptible swell. The sky blazed. The man with the carved paddle stopped. “It should be somewhere
