mpletely did the reality of the narrative impress
itself on my mind, that I felt as if the murder that I was relating had
been a crime committed by myself. It was my own ingenuity that hid the
dead body, and removed the traces of blood--and my own self-control that
presented me as an innocent person, when the victim was missing, and I
was asked (among other respectable people) to say whether I thought he
was living or dead."

"A whole week has passed--and has been occupied by my new literary
pursuit.

"My inexhaustible imagination invents plots and conspiracies of which I
am the happy hero. I set traps which invariably catch my enemies. I place
myself in positions which are entirely new to me. Yesterday, for
instance, I invented a method of spiriting away a young person, whose
disappearance was of considerable importance under the circumstances, and
succeeded in completely bewildering her father, her friends, and the
police: not a trace of her could they find. If I ever have occasion to
do, in reality, what I only suppose myself to do in these exercises of
ingenuity, what a dangerous man I may yet prove to be!

"This morning, I rose, planning to amuse myself with a new narrative,
when the ideal world in which I am now living, became a world annihilated
by collision with the sordid interests of real life.

"In plainer words, I received a written message from my landlord which
has annoyed me--and not without good cause. This tiresome person finds
himself unexpectedly obliged to give up possession of his house. The
circumstances are not worth relating. The result is important--I am
compelled to find new lodgings. Where am I to go?

"I left it to chance. That is to say, I looked at the railway time-table,
and took a ticket for the first place, of which the name happened to
catch my eye. Arrived at my destination, I found myself in a dirty
manufacturing town, with an ugly river running through it.

"After a little reflection, I turned my back on the town, and followed
the course of the river, in search of shelter and solitude on one or the
other of its banks. An hour of walking brought me to an odd-looking
cottage, half old and half new, attached to a water-mill. A bill in one
of the windows announced that rooms were to be let; and a look round
revealed a thick wood on my left hand, and a wilderness of sand and heath
on my right. So far as appearances went, here was the very place for me.

"I knocked at the door, an