The Plattner Story by H. G. Wells, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. Read this book online for free on HackerNoon!

“It’s the alterations play the devil with us,” said Monson, biting a paper-fastener.

My own case, I know, is hopeless, and I am now in some measure prepared to meet my fate.

The operation had not killed me. And I perceived, suddenly, that the dull melancholy of half a year was lifted from my mind.

“Can’t say. They’re versatile people. They know a lot of rum dodges. You’d better get that copper-devil, Shakespear, to talk.”

“If,” I said a little louder, “if you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I will relieve you from the task of entertaining me.”

“To-morrow,” she said, speaking in a whisper too, and still staring out of the window.

“What a lot of these funguses there are about here!” remarked brother Tom presently. “I can’t see what use they are in the world.”

“Not engaged, ma’am; but he is saving money to buy a ring—hammyfist.”

“There is no manliness,” said Aubrey Vair, with a sudden glow of moral exaltation, “in doing wrong. My love”—

The whale in passing caught the boat with such a violent blow from its dorsal fin, that the men lost their footing and the lances missed their mark.

“He was an author, you see, and he wrote a lot of books.”

Engaged to a very nice girl, named Delia. Fairly new, she was—cigarettes—liked me because I was human and original.