In 'The Invisible Man' by H.G.Wells, there is a sentence;"Wait till the summer," said Mrs. Hall sagely, "when the artisks are beginning to come. …"
Mrs.Hall is the wife of Mr.Hall, who is the owner of the inn where the invisible man(whose name is Griffin) is staying. Mr.Hall does not like Griffin so whenever he can, he expresses that they should evict him. The quoted sentence is the response of the wife when Mr.Hall said so in the late April.
What is 'artisks'? Why is there the definite article 'the'?
Best Answer
You may differ, finally, but my take on that use of 'artisks' by that character in that work is that it's a malapropism springing from 'artists' via the lips of the sage Mrs. Hall. If you read on, I expect you'll find that the artists do indeed come to the inn in the summer, and that Mrs. Hall has a vaguely disapproving yet tolerant attitude toward those same artists.
Of course, it could just be a typo in an ineptly proofed edition.