The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Room, by H. G. Wells

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Title: The Red Room

Author: H. G. Wells

Release Date: October 27, 2007 [EBook #23218]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED ROOM ***

Produced by David Widger

THE RED ROOM

By H. G. Wells

"It's your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm once more.

I heard the faint sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags in
the passage outside. The door creaked on its hinges as a second old man
entered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first. He
supported himself by the help of a crutch, his eyes were covered by
a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his
decaying yellow teeth. He made straight for an armchair on the opposite
side of the table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man with
the withered hand gave the newcomer a short glance of positive dislike;
the old woman took no notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes
fixed steadily on the fire.

"I said--it's your own choosing," said the man with the withered hand,
when the coughing had ceased for a while.

"It's my own choosing," I answered.

The man with the shade became aware of my presence for the first time,
and threw his head back for a moment, and sidewise, to see me. I caught
a momentary glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then he
began to cough and splutter again.

"Why don't you drink?" said the man with the withered arm, pushing the
beer toward him. The man with the shade poured out a glassful with a
shaking hand, that splashed half as much again on the deal table. A
monstrous shadow of him crouched upon the wall, and mocked his action
as he poured and drank. I must confess I had scarcely expected these
grotesque custodians. There is, to my mind, something inhuman in
senility, something crouching and atavistic; the human qualities seem
to drop from old people insensibly day by day. The three of them made me
feel uncomfortable with their gaunt silences, their bent carriage,
their evident unfriendliness to me and to one another. And that night,
perhaps, I was in the