THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON

by H.G. Wells

Chapter 1

Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne

As I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of vine-leaves under the

blue sky of southern Italy, it comes to me with a certain quality of

astonishment that my participation in these amazing adventures of Mr.

Cavor was, after all, the outcome of the purest accident. It might have

been any one. I fell into these things at a time when I thought myself

removed from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. I had

gone to Lympne because I had imagined it the most uneventful place in the

world. "Here, at any rate," said I, "I shall find peace and a chance to

work!"

And this book is the sequel. So utterly at variance is destiny with all

the little plans of men. I may perhaps mention here that very recently I

had come an ugly cropper in certain business enterprises. Sitting now

surrounded by all the circumstances of wealth, there is a luxury in

admitting my extremity. I can admit, even, that to a certain extent my

disasters were conceivably of my own making. It may be there are

directions in which I have some capacity, but the conduct of business

operations is not among these. But in those days I was young, and my youth

among other objectionable forms took that of a pride in my capacity for

affairs. I am young still in years, but the things that have happened to

me have rubbed something of the youth from my mind. Whether they have

brought any wisdom to light below it is a more doubtful matter.

It is scarcely necessary to go into the details of the speculations that

landed me at Lympne, in Kent. Nowadays even about business transactions

there is a strong spice of adventure. I took risks. In these things there

is invariably a certain amount of give and take, and it fell to me finally

to do the giving. Reluctantly enough. Even when I had got out of

everything, one cantankerous creditor saw fit to be malignant. Perhaps you

have met that flaming sense of outraged virtue, or perhaps you have only

felt it. He ran me hard. It seemed to me, at last, that there was nothing

for it but to write a play, unless I wanted to drudge for my living as a

clerk. I have a certain imagination, and luxurious tastes, and I meant to

make a vigorous fight for it before that fate overtook me. In addition to

my belief in my powers as a business man, I had always in those days had

an idea that I was equal to writing a very good play. It is not, I

believe, a very uncommon persuasion. I knew there is nothing a man can do

outside legitimate business transactions that has such opulent

possibilities, and very probably that biased my opinion. I had, indeed,

got into the habit of regarding this unwritten drama as a convenient

little reserve put by for a rainy day. That rainy day had come, and I set

to work.

I soon discovered that writing a play was a longer business than I had

supposed; at first I had reckoned ten days for it, and it was to have a

pied-a-terre while it was in hand that I came to Lympne. I reckoned myself

lucky in getting that little bungalow. I got it on a three years'

agreement. I put in a few sticks of furniture, and while the play was in

hand I did my own cooking. My cooking would have shocked Mrs. Bond. And

yet, you know, it had flavour. I had a coffee-pot, a sauce-pan for eggs,

and one for potatoes, and a frying-pan for sausages and bacon - such was

the simple apparatus of my comfort. One cannot always be magnificent, but

simplicity is always a possible alternative. For the rest I laid in an

eighteen-gallon cask of beer on credit, and a trustful baker came each

day. It was not, perhaps, in the style of Sybaris, but I have had worse

times. I was a little sorry for the baker, who was a very decent man

indeed, but even for him I hoped.