For reasons which will be given later, I sit down here, in Verona, to write the history of my extravagant adventure.

I shall formulate and expand the rough notes in my diary which lies open before me, and I shall begin with a happy afternoon in May, six months ago.
May 20th.
_London_:--To-day is the seventh anniversary of my release from captivity.

I will note it every year in my diary with a sigh of unutterable thanksgiving.

For seven long blessed years have I been free from the degrading influences of Jones Minor and the First Book of Euclid.

Some men find the modern English boy stimulating, and the old Egyptian humorous.