"And may I ask—"
"You'll be astonished," said Mr. Marvel behind his hand.
"It's tremenjous."
"Indeed!" said the mariner.
"The fact is," began Mr. Marvel eagerly in a confidential undertone.
Suddenly his expression changed marvellously.
"Ow!" he said. He rose stiffly in his seat. His face was eloquent of physical suffering.
"Wow!" he said.
"What's up?" said the mariner, concerned.
"Toothache," said Mr. Marvel, and put his hand to his ear.
He caught hold of his books.
"I must be getting on, I think," he said. He edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor.
"But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!" protested the mariner.
Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself.
"Hoax," said a Voice.
"It's a hoax," said Mr. Marvel.
"But it's in the paper," said the mariner.
"Hoax all the same," said Marvel.
"I know the chap that started the lie.
There ain't no Invisible Man whatsoever—Blimey."
"But how 'bout this paper? D'you mean to say—?"
"Not a word of it," said Marvel, stoutly.
The mariner stared, paper in hand.
Mr. Marvel jerkily faced about.
"Wait a bit," said the mariner, rising and speaking slowly,
"D'you mean to say—?"
"I do," said Mr. Marvel.
"Then why did you let me go on and tell you all this blarsted stuff, then?
What d'yer mean by letting a man make a fool of himself like that for?
Eh?"
Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks.
The mariner was suddenly very red indeed; he clenched his hands.
"I been talking here this ten minutes," he said; "and you, you little pot-bellied, leathery-faced son of an old boot, couldn't have the elementary manners—"
"Don't you come bandying words with me," said Mr. Marvel.
"Bandying words!
I'm a jolly good mind—"
"Come up," said a Voice, and Mr. Marvel was suddenly whirled about and started marching off in a curious spasmodic manner.
"You'd better move on," said the mariner.
"Who's moving on?" said Mr. Marvel.
He was receding obliquely with a curious hurrying gait, with occasional violent jerks forward.
Some way along the road he began a muttered monologue, protests and recriminations.
"Silly devil!" said the mariner, legs wide apart, elbows akimbo, watching the receding figure.
"I'll show you, you silly ass—hoaxing me! It's here—on the paper!"
Mr. Marvel retorted incoherently and, receding, was hidden by a bend in the road, but the mariner still stood magnificent in the midst of the way, until the approach of a butcher's cart dislodged him.
Then he turned himself towards Port Stowe.
"Full of extra-ordinary asses," he said softly to himself.
"Just to take me down a bit—that was his silly game—It's on the paper!"
And there was another extraordinary thing he was presently to hear, that had happened quite close to him.
And that was a vision of a "fist full of money" (no less) travelling without visible agency, along by the wall at the corner of St. Michael's Lane.
A brother mariner had seen this wonderful sight that very morning.