Rerieic uf Rftietct. Ij 11/06. 



IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET. 



BY H. G. WELLS. 



BOOK THE FIRST— THE COMET, 



CHAPTER THE THIRD- THE EEVOLVEE-<Conlinufd). 



ST>'Of 6is : The uari-utor tells Ihe story of the Great Change. When a yoimg man he was a clerk in a pot-bank in 

 f'layton. He i-s lefased an increase in wages and gives up his position. His intimate friend is a socialist. Parload. a man 

 (jf his own age. who has. besides, a taste for science and is deeply concerned about a comet whose path is approaching the 

 earth's orbit. AVhy continue to think about socialism, he arg^nes. when there is a possibility that the comet will hit the earth .^ 

 Times are bad in England, on account of over-production and the intrusion of American products in the English maket. 

 Strikes and lock-outs exist thi-oughout the country'. The narrator lias been engaged to marry Nettie Stuart, but the engage- 

 ment has been broken on account of his socialism and religious doubt. He is iHstressed because of a suspicion that Edward 

 Verrall, the son of Stuai-t"s employer, is paying the girl attention. Obeying some vague impulse, he buys a revolver. Trouble 

 breaks out in the collieries owned by Lord Redcar, whose motor car is destroyed by the mob. The narrator witnesses the 

 affair, and goes home in a greatlv excited condition. 



V. 



Vou must understand that I had no set plan of 

 ■murder when I walked over to Checkshill. I had 

 no set plan of any sort. There was a great con- 

 fusion of dramatically conceived intentions in my 

 head, scenes of threatening and denunciation and 

 terror, but I did not mean to kill. The revolver 

 was to turn upon my ri\'al my disadvantage in age 

 and physique. But that wasn't it really ! The re- 

 volver ! — I took the revolver because I had the re- 

 volver and was a foolish young lout. It was a 

 dramatic sort of thing to take. I had, I sav, no 

 plan at all. 



Ever and again during that second trudge to 

 Checkshill, I was irradiated with a novel, unreason- 

 able hope. I had awakened in the morning with 

 the hope — it may have been the last, unfaded trail of 

 some obliterated dream — that, after all, Xettie might 

 still relent toward me, that her heart was kind to- 

 Avard me in spite of all that I imagined had hap- 



pened. I even thought it possible that I might have 

 misinterpreted what I had seen. Perhaps she would 

 explain everything. My revolver was in my pocket 

 for all that. 



I limped at the outset, but after the second mile 

 my ankle warmed to forgetfulness, and the rest of 

 the way I walked well. Suppose, after all, I was 

 wrong ? 



I was still debating that as I came through the 

 park. By the corner of the paddock near the 

 keeper's cottage, I was reminded, by some belated 

 blue hyacinths, of a time when Nettie and I had 

 gathered them together. It seemed impossible we 

 could really have parted ourselves for good and all. 

 A wave of tenderness flowed over me, and still 

 flooded me as I came through the little dell and 

 drew toward the hollies. But there the sweet Net- 

 tie of my boy's love faded, and I thought of the 

 new Nettie of desire and the man I had come 

 upon in the moonlight ; I thought of the narrow. 



