A Midnight Visitor

I do not assert that what I am about to relate is in all its particulars
absolutely true. Not, understand me, that it is not true, but I do not
feel that I care to make an assertion that is more than likely to be
received by a sceptical age with sneers of incredulity. I will content
myself with a simple narration of the events of that evening, the memory
of which is so indelibly impressed upon my mind, and which, were I able to
do so, I should forget without any sentiments of regret whatsoever.

The affair happened on the night before I fell ill of typhoid fever, and
is about the sole remaining remembrance of that immediate period left to
me. Briefly the story is as follows:

Notwithstanding the fact that I was overworked in the practice of my
profession--it was early in March, and I was preparing my contributions
for the coming Christmas issues of the periodicals for which I write--I
had accepted the highly honorable position of Entertainment Committeeman
at one of the small clubs to which I belonged. I accepted the office,
supposing that the duties connected with it were easy of performance, and
with absolutely no notion that the faith of my fellow-committeemen in my
judgment was so strong that they would ultimately manifest a desire to
leave the whole programme for the club's diversion in my hands. This,
however, they did; and when the month of March assumed command of the
calendar I found myself utterly fagged out and at my wits' end to know
what style of entertainment to provide for the club meeting to be held on
the evening of the 15th of that month. I had provided already an unusually
taking variety of evenings, of which one in particular, called the
"Martyrs' Night," in which living authors writhed through selections from
their own works, while an inhuman audience, every man of whom had suffered
even as the victims then suffered, sat on tenscore of camp-stools puffing
the smoke of twenty-five score of free cigars into their faces, and
gloating over their misery, was extremely successful, and had gained for
me among my professional brethren the enviable title of "Machiavelli
Junior." This performance, in fact, was the one now uppermost in the minds
of the club members, having been the most recent of the series; and it had
been prophesied by many men whose judgment was unassailable that no man,
not even I, could ever conceive of anything that could surpass it.
Disposed at first to question the accuracy of a prophecy to the effect
that I was, like most others of my kind, possessed of limitations, I came
finally to believe that perhaps, after all, these male Cassandras with
whom I was thrown were right. Indeed, the more I racked my brains to think
of something better than the "Martyrs'