I was sitting, one stormy night--Tuesday night it was--in my study, in after-dinner mood, enjoying the luxury of a good fire and a private clerical cigar, when a young woman--respectable-looking young person--entered, and informed me that a sickly relative, from whom I have expectations, was dying, and wished to see me immediately.
"Of course I started up at once, donned hat and greatcoat, and followed my respectable young person into a cab waiting at the door.

Hardly was I in when I was seized by some invisible personage, bound, blindfolded, and gagged, and driven through the starry spheres, for all I know, for hours and hours interminable.
"Presently we stopped.

I was led out--led into a house, upstairs, my uncomfortable bandages removed, and the use of my eyesight restored.
"I was in a large room, furnished very much like anybody's parlor, and brilliantly lighted.

My companion of the carriage was still at my elbow.
I turned to regard him.

My friends, he was masked like a Venetian bravo, and wore a romantic inky cloak, like a Roman toga, that swept the floor.
"I sat aghast, the cold perspiration oozing from every pore.