The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents

The Stolen Bacillus and Other
Incidents
by H. G. (Herbert
George) Wells

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Title: The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents
Author: H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
Release Date: June 26, 2004 [EBook #12750]
Language: English
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THE STOLEN BACILLUS AND OTHER INCIDENTS
BY H.G. WELLS
AUTHOR OF "THE TIME MACHINE"
METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET, STRAND LONDON 1895
Colonial Library

TO
H.B. MARRIOTT WATSON
Most of the stories in this collection appeared originally in the Pall
Mall Budget, two were published in the Pall Mall Gazette, and one in
St James's Gazette. I desire to make the usual acknowledgments. The
third story in the book was, I find, reprinted by the Observatory, and
the "Lord of the Dynamos" by the Melbourne Leader.
H.G. WELLS.

CONTENTS
I. THE STOLEN BACILLUS
II. THE FLOWERING OF THE STRANGE ORCHID
III. IN THE AVU OBSERVATORY
IV. THE TRIUMPHS OF A TAXIDERMIST
V. A DEAL IN OSTRICHES
VI. THROUGH A WINDOW

VII. THE TEMPTATION OF HARRINGAY
VIII. THE FLYING MAN
IX. THE DIAMOND MAKER
X. AEPYORNIS ISLAND
XI. THE REMARKABLE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES
XII. THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS
XIII. THE HAMMERPOND PARK BURGLARY
XIV. A MOTH--GENUS NOVO
XV. THE TREASURE IN THE FOREST

THE STOLEN BACILLUS
"This again," said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the
microscope, "is a preparation of the celebrated Bacillus of cholera--the
cholera germ."
The pale-faced man peered down the microscope. He was evidently not
accustomed to that kind of thing, and held a limp white hand over his
disengaged eye. "I see very little," he said.
"Touch this screw," said the Bacteriologist; "perhaps the microscope is
out of focus for you. Eyes vary so much. Just the fraction of a turn this
way or that."
"Ah! now I see," said the visitor. "Not so very much to see after all.
Little streaks and shreds of pink. And yet those little particles, those
mere atomies, might multiply and devastate a city! Wonderful!"
He stood up, and releasing the glass slip from the microscope, held it in
his hand towards the window. "Scarcely visible," he said, scrutinising

the preparation. He hesitated. "Are these--alive? Are they dangerous
now?"
"Those have been stained and killed," said the Bacteriologist. "I wish,
for my own part, we could kill and stain every one of them in the
universe."
"I suppose," the pale man said with a slight smile, "that you scarcely
care to have such things about you in the living--in the active state?"
"On the contrary, we are obliged to," said the Bacteriologist. "Here, for
instance--" He walked across the room and took up one of several
sealed tubes. "Here is the living thing. This is a cultivation of the actual
living disease bacteria." He hesitated, "Bottled cholera, so to speak."
A slight gleam of satisfaction appeared momentarily in the face of the
pale man.
"It's a deadly thing to have in your possession," he said, devouring the
little tube with his eyes. The Bacteriologist watched the morbid
pleasure in his visitor's expression. This man, who had visited him that
afternoon with a note of introduction from an old friend, interested him
from the very contrast of their dispositions. The lank black hair and
deep grey eyes, the haggard expression and nervous manner, the fitful
yet keen interest of his visitor were a novel change from the phlegmatic
deliberations of the ordinary scientific worker with whom the
Bacteriologist chiefly associated. It was perhaps natural, with a hearer
evidently so impressionable to the lethal nature of his topic, to take the
most effective aspect of the matter.
He held the tube in his hand thoughtfully. "Yes, here is the pestilence
imprisoned. Only break such a little tube as this into a supply of
drinking-water, say to these minute particles of life that one must needs
stain and examine with the highest powers of the microscope even to
see, and that one can neither smell nor taste--say to them, 'Go forth,
increase and multiply, and replenish the cisterns,' and
death--mysterious, untraceable death, death swift and terrible, death full
of pain and indignity--would be released upon this city, and go hither

and thither seeking his victims. Here he would take the husband from
the wife, here the child from its mother, here the statesman from his
duty, and