He uttered a sharp, squeaking cry and twisted
his arms with nervous energy round the chair. A piteous look that was
not far from tears spread over his white face. Grey shadows followed
it--the grey of fear. He began to struggle convulsively. "Hold me fast! Catch me! For God's sake, keep me here! I'm on the rush
already. Oh, it's frightful!" he cried in tones of anguish, his voice as
thin as a reed. Dr. Silence made a plunge forward to seize him, but in a flash, before
he could cover the space between them, Mr. Racine Mudge, screaming and
struggling, seemed to shoot past him into invisibility. He disappeared
like an arrow from a bow propelled at infinite speed, and his voice no
longer sounded in the external air, but seemed in some curious way to
make itself heard somewhere within the depths of the doctor's own being. It was almost like a faint singing cry in his head, like a voice of
dream, a voice of vision and unreality. "Alcohol, alcohol!" it cried, "give me alcohol! It's the quickest way. Alcohol, before I'm out of reach!" The doctor, accustomed to rapid decisions and even more rapid action,
remembered that a brandy flask stood upon the mantelpiece, and in less
than a second he had seized it and was holding it out towards the space
above the chair recently occupied by the visible Mudge. Then, before his
very eyes, and long ere he could unscrew the metal stopper, he saw the
contents of the closed glass phial sink and lessen as though some one
were drinking violently and greedily of the liquor within. "Thanks! Enough! It deadens the vibrations!" cried the faint voice in
his interior, as he withdrew the flask and set it back upon the
mantelpiece. He understood that in Mudge's present condition one side of
the flask was open to space and he could drink without removing the
stopper. He could hardly have had a more interesting proof of what he
had been hearing described at such length. But the next moment--the very same moment it almost seemed--the German
band stopped midway in its tune--and there was Mr. Mudge back in his
chair again, gasping and panting! "Quick!" he shrieked, "stop that band! Send it away! Catch hold of me! Block the entrances! Block the entrances! Give me the red book! Oh, oh,
oh-h-h-h!!!" The music had begun again. It was merely a temporary interruption. The
_Tannhäuser_ March started again, this time at a tremendous pace that
made it sound like a rapid two-step as though the instruments played
against time. But the brief interruption gave Dr. Silence a moment in which to collect
his scattering thoughts, and before the band had got through half a bar,
he had flung forward upon the chair and held Mr. Racine Mudge, the
struggling little victim of Higher Space, in a grip of iron. His arms
went all round his diminutive person, taking in a good part of the chair
at the same time. He was not a big man, yet he seemed to smother Mudge
completely. Yet, even as he did so, and felt the wriggling form underneath him, it
began to melt and slip away like air or water. The wood of the arm-chair
somehow disentangled itself from between his own arms and those of
Mudge. The phenomenon known as the passage of matter through matter took
place. The little man seemed actually to get mixed up in his own being. Dr. Silence could just see his face beneath him. It puckered and grew
dark as though from some great internal effort. He heard the thin, reedy
voice cry in his ear to "Block the entrances, block the entrances!" and
then--but how in the world describe what is indescribable? John Silence half rose up to watch. Racine Mudge, his face distorted
beyond all recognition, was making a marvellous inward movement, as
though doubling back upon himself. He turned funnel-wise like water in a
whirling vortex, and then appeared to break up somewhat as a reflection
breaks up and divides in a distorting convex mirror. He went neither
forward nor backwards, neither to the right nor the left, neither up nor
down. But he went. He went utterly. He simply flashed away out of sight
like a vanishing projectile. All but one leg! Dr. Silence just had the time and the presence of mind
to seize upon the left ankle and boot as it disappeared, and to this he
held on for several seconds like grim death. Yet all the time he knew it
was a foolish and useless thing to do. The foot was in his grasp one moment, and the next it seemed--this was
the only way he could describe it--inside his own skin and bones, and at
the same time outside his hand and all round it. It seemed mixed up in
some amazing way with his own flesh and blood. Then it was gone, and he
was tightly grasping a draught of heated air. "Gone! gone! gone!" cried a thick, whispering voice, somewhere deep
within his own consciousness. "Lost! lost! lost!" it repeated, growing
fainter and fainter till at length it vanished into nothing and the last
signs of Mr. Racine Mudge vanished with it. John Silence locked his red book and replaced it in the cabinet, which
he fastened with a click, and when Barker answered the bell he inquired
if Mr. Mudge had left a card upon the table. It appeared that he had,
and when the servant returned with it, Dr. Silence read the address and
made a note of it. It was in North London. "Mr. Mudge has gone," he said quietly to Barker, noticing his expression
of alarm. "He's not taken his 'at with him, sir." "Mr. Mudge requires no hat where he is now," continued the doctor,
stooping to poke the fire. "But he may return for it--"

"And the humbrella, sir." "And the umbrella." "He didn't go out _my_ way, sir, if you please," stuttered the amazed
servant, his curiosity overcoming his nervousness. "Mr. Mudge has his own way of coming and going, and prefers it. If he
returns by the door at any time remember to bring him instantly to me,
and be kind and gentle with him and ask no questions. Also, remember,
Barker, to think pleasantly, sympathetically, affectionately of him
while he is away. Mr. Mudge is a very suffering gentleman." Barker bowed and went out of the room backwards, gasping and feeling
round the inside of his collar with three very hot fingers of one hand. It was two days later when he brought in a telegram to the study. Dr. Silence opened it, and read as follows:

    "Bombay. Just slipped out again. All safe. Have blocked
    entrances. Thousand thanks. Address Cooks, London.--MUDGE." Dr. Silence looked up and saw Barker staring at him bewilderingly. It
occurred to him that somehow he knew the contents of the telegram. "Make a parcel of Mr. Mudge's things," he said briefly, "and address
them Thomas Cook & Sons, Ludgate Circus. And send them there exactly a
month from to-day and marked 'To be called for.'" "Yes, sir," said Barker, leaving the room with a deep sigh and a hurried
glance at the waste-paper basket where his master had dropped the pink