The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst Railway Station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every inch of his face save the shiny tip of his nose....
… Suddenly (65 pages later) the stranger raised his gloved hands clenched, stamped his foot, and said. “Stop!” with such extraordinary violence that he silenced her instantly.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “who I am or what I am. I’ll show you. By heaven! I’ll show you.” Then he put his open palm over his face and withdrew it. The centre of the face became a black cavity. “Here,” he said. He stepped forward and handed Mrs Hall something which she, staring at his metamorphosed face, accepted automatically. Then, when she saw what it was, she screamed loudly, dropped it, and staggered back. The nose—it was the stranger’s nose! Pink and shining—rolled on the floor with a sound of hollow cardboard.
Then he removed his spectacles, and everyone in the bar gasped. He took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers and bandages. For a moment they resisted him. A flash of horrible anticipation passed through the bar. “Oh, my Gard!” said someone. Then off they came.
  It was worse than anything. Mrs Hall, standing open-mouthed and horror-struck, shrieked at what she saw and made for the door of the house. Everyone began to move. They were prepared for scars, disfigurement, tangible horrors—but nothing! The bandages and false hair flew across the passage to the bar, making a hobbledehoy jump to avoid them. Everyone tumbled on everyone else down the steps. For the man who stood there shouting some incoherent explanation was a solid, gesticulating figure up to the coat collar of him, and then—nothingness, no visible thing at all.
  I was The Invisible Man. Upstairs, they had almost forgotten I existed. Indeed on those rare occasions I was required to enter the upper world, there were invariably people who wondered who I was for with the constant staff changeover, it was hard to keep track. Some new staff members worked there for months before they realised my existence. But others knew I was there, and when a question concerning past records arose, would venture down to the dusty room and find me at work.
“I’m looking for a policy issued on the 23rd of May 1954 for a Mrs Horton,” they might say.
“Know the policy number?” I would ask. If they did, I would find it for them immediately. If they did not, there was no hope.