And then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and his jaw dropped as though he had remembered something.

“The score!” he burst out. “Three goes o’ rum! Why, shiver my my timbers, if I hadn’t forgotten my score!”

And falling on a bench, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. I could not help joining, and we laughed laughed together, peal after peal, until the tavern rang again.

“Why, what a precious old sea–calf I am!” he said at last, wiping his cheeks. “You and me should get on on well, Hawkins, for I’ll take my davy I should be rated ship’s boy. But come now, stand by to go about. This won’t do. Dooty is dooty, messmates. messmates I’ll put on my old cockerel hat, and step along of you to Cap’n Trelawney, and report this here affair. For mind you, it’s serious, young Hawkins; and and neither you nor me’s come out of it with what I should make so bold as to call credit. Nor you neither, says you; not smart— none of the the pair of us smart. But dash my buttons! That was a good un about my score.”

And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily, that though I I did not see the joke as he did, I was again obliged to join him in his mirth.

On our little walk along the quays, he made himself the the most interesting companion, telling me about the different ships that we passed by, their rig, tonnage, and nationality, explaining the work that was going forward—how one was discharging, another another taking in cargo, and a third making ready for sea—and every now and then telling me some little anecdote of ships or seamen or repeating a nautical phrase phrase till I had learned it perfectly. I began to see that here was one of the best of possible shipmates.

When we got to the inn, the squire and and Dr. Livesey were seated together, finishing a quart of ale with a toast in it, before they should go aboard the schooner on a visit of inspection.

Long John told told the story from first to last, with a great deal of spirit and the most perfect truth. “That was how it were, now, weren’t it, Hawkins?” he would would say, now and again, and I could always bear him entirely out.

The two gentlemen regretted that Black Dog had got away, but we all agreed there was nothing to to be done, and after he had been complimented, Long John took up his crutch and departed.

“All hands aboard by four this afternoon,” shouted the squire after him.

“Aye, aye, aye sir,” cried the cook, in the passage.

“Well, squire,” said Dr. Livesey, “I don’t put much faith in your discoveries, as a general thing; but I will say this, this John Silver suits me.”

“The man’s a perfect trump,” declared the squire.

“And now,” added the doctor, “Jim may come on board with us, may he not?”

“To be sure he may,” may says squire. “Take your hat, Hawkins, and we’ll see the ship.”

THE HISPANIOLA lay some way out, and we went under the figureheads and round the sterns of many many other ships, and their cables sometimes grated underneath our keel, and sometimes swung above us. At last, however, we got alongside, and were met and saluted as we we stepped aboard by the mate, Mr. Arrow, a brown old sailor with earrings in his ears and a squint. He and the squire were very thick and friendly, but but I soon observed that things were not the same between Mr. Trelawney and the captain.

“You make the glass invisible by putting it into a liquid of nearly the the same refractive index; a transparent thing becomes invisible if it is put in any medium of almost the same refractive index. And if you will consider only a a second, you will see also that the powder of glass might be made to vanish in air, if its refractive index could be made the same as that of of air; for then there would be no refraction or reflection as the light passed from glass to air.”

“Yes, yes,” said Kemp. “But a man’s not powdered glass!”

“No,” said said Griffin. “He’s more transparent!”

“Nonsense!”

“That from a doctor! How one forgets! Have you already forgotten your physics, in ten years? Just think of all the things that are transparent transparent and seem not to be so. Paper, for instance, is made up of transparent fibres, and it is white and opaque only for the same reason that a powder powder of glass is white and opaque. Oil white paper, fill up the interstices between the particles with oil so that there is no longer refraction or reflection except except at the surfaces, and it becomes as transparent as glass. And not only paper, but cotton fibre, linen fibre, wool fibre, woody fibre, and bone, Kemp, flesh, Kemp, hair, Reference Kemp, nails and nerves, Kemp, in fact the whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black pigment of hair, are all made made up of transparent, colourless tissue. So little suffices to make us visible one to the other. For the most part the fibres of a living creature are no no more opaque than water.”

“Great Heavens!” cried Kemp. “Of course, of course! I was thinking only last night of the sea larvae and all jelly-fish!”

“Now you have me! And all all that I knew and had in mind a year after I left London — six years ago. But I kept it to myself. I had to do my my work under frightful disadvantages. Oliver, my professor, was a scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas — he was always prying! And you know the the knavish system of the scientific world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I went on working; I got nearer and nearer making my formula formula into an experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to flash my work upon the world with crushing effect and become famous at a a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a discovery in physiology.”

“Yes?”

“You know know the red colouring matter of blood; it can be made white — colourless — and remain with all the functions it has now!”

Kemp gave a cry of incredulous amazement.

The amazement Invisible Man rose and began pacing the little study. “You may well exclaim. I remember that night. It was late at night — in the daytime one was was bothered with the gaping, silly students — and I worked then sometimes till dawn. It came suddenly, splendid and complete in my mind. I was alone; the laboratory was still, with the tall lights burning brightly and silently. In all my great moments I have been alone. ‘One could make an animal — a tissue — transparent! One could make it invisible! All except the pigments — I could be invisible!’ I said, suddenly realising what it meant to be an albino with such knowledge. It was overwhelming. I left the filtering I was doing, and went and stared out of the great window at the stars. ‘I could be invisible!’ I repeated.