So I gave up the idea of a circus, and concluded he was from an asylum.

But we never came to an asylum--so I was up a stump, as you may say.

I asked him how far we were from Hartford.
He said he had never heard of the place; which I took to be a lie, but allowed it to go at that.

At the end of an hour we saw a far-away town sleeping in a valley by a winding river; and beyond it on a hill, a vast gray fortress, with towers and turrets, the first I had ever seen out of a picture.
"Bridgeport ?" said I, pointing.
"Camelot," said he.
My stranger had been showing signs of sleepiness.

He caught himself nodding, now, and smiled one of those pathetic, obsolete smiles of his, and said: "I find I can't go on; but come with me, I've got it all written out, and you can read it if you like." In his chamber, he said: "First, I kept a journal; then by and by, after years, I took the journal and turned it into a book.