There was a long and painful silence, and then Dr. Hagg said smoothly:
“Everything upon that plane is different; what he has got is not...
well, not, of course, what we call hair... but--”
“Don't you think,” said his wife, very softly, “don't you think that
really, for the sake of argument, when talking to the mere public, one
might call it hair?”
“Perhaps you are right,” said the doctor after a few moments'
reflection. “In connexion with hair like that one must speak in
parables.”
“Well, what on earth is it,” I asked in some irritation, “if it isn't
hair? Is it feathers?”
“Not feathers, as we understand feathers,” answered Hagg in an awful
voice.
I got up in some irritation. “Can I see him, at any rate?” I asked.
“I am a journalist, and have no earthly motives except curiosity and
personal vanity. I should like to say that I had shaken hands with the
Superman.”
The husband and wife had both got heavily to their feet, and stood,
embarrassed. “Well, of course, you know,” said Lady Hypatia, with the
really charming smile of the aristocratic hostess. “You know he can't
exactly shake hands... not hands, you know.... The structure, of
course--”
I broke out of all social bounds, and rushed at the door of the room
which I thought to contain the incredible creature. I burst it open; the
room was pitch dark. But from in front of me came a small sad yelp, and
from behind me a double shriek.
“You have done it, now!” cried Dr. Hagg, burying his bald brow in his
hands. “You have let in a draught on him; and he is dead.”
As I walked away from Croydon that night I saw men in black carrying
out a coffin that was not of any human shape. The wind wailed above me,
whirling the poplars, so that they drooped and nodded like the plumes of
some cosmic funeral. “It is, indeed,” said Dr. Hagg, “the whole universe
weeping over the frustration of its most magnificent birth.” But I
thought that there was a hoot of laughter in the high wail of the wind.