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The atmosphere of the earth , we now know , contains far more oxygen or far less argon ( whichever way one likes to put it ) than does Mars ’ . The invigorating influences of this excess of oxygen upon the Martians indisputably did much to counterbalance the increased weight of their bodies . And , in the second place , we all overlooked the fact that such mechanical intelligence as the Martian possessed was quite able to dispense with muscular exertion at a pinch . But I did not consider these points at the time , and so my reasoning was dead against the chances of the invaders . With wine and food , the confidence of my own table , and the necessity of reassuring my wife , I grew by insensible degrees courageous and secure . “ They have done a foolish thing , ” said I , fingering my wineglass . “ They are dangerous because , no doubt , they are mad with terror . Perhaps they expected to find no living things — certainly no intelligent living things . ” “ A shell in the pit , ” said I , “ if the worst comes to the worst , will kill them all . ” The intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my perceptive powers in a state of erethism . I remember that dinner table with extraordinary vividness even now . My dear wife’s sweet anxious face peering at me from under the pink lamp shade , the white cloth with its silver and glass table furniture — for in those days even philosophical writers had many little luxuries — the crimson - purple wine in my glass , are photographically distinct . At the end of it I sat , tempering nuts with a cigarette , regretting Ogilvy’s rashness , and denouncing the short - sighted timidity of the Martians . So some respectable dodo in the Mauritius might have lorded it in his nest , and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in want of animal food . “ We will peck them to death tomorrow , my dear . ” I did not know it , but that was the last civilised dinner I was to eat for very many strange and terrible days . VIII . FRIDAY NIGHT . The most extraordinary thing to my mind , of all the strange and wonderful things that happened upon that Friday , was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was to topple that social order headlong . If on Friday night you had taken a pair of compasses and drawn a circle with a radius of five miles round the Woking sand - pits , I doubt if you would have had one human being outside it , unless it were some relation of Stent or of the three or four cyclists or London people lying dead on the common , whose emotions or habits were at all affected by the new - comers . Many people had heard of the cylinder , of course , and talked about it in their leisure , but it certainly did not make the sensation that an ultimatum to Germany would have done .
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