CHAPTER I

PAUL, ARRIVED IN A STRANGE LAND, LEARNS MANY THINGS, AND GOES TO MEET
THE MAN IN GREY.

Fate intended me for a singularly fortunate man. Properly, I ought to
have been born in June, which being, as is well known, the luckiest
month in all the year for such events, should, by thoughtful parents,
be more generally selected. How it was I came to be born in May,
which is, on the other hand, of all the twelve the most unlucky, as I
have proved, I leave to those more conversant with the subject to
explain. An early nurse, the first human being of whom I have any
distinct recollection, unhesitatingly attributed the unfortunate fact
to my natural impatience; which quality she at the same time predicted
would lead me into even greater trouble, a prophecy impressed by
future events with the stamp of prescience. It was from this same
bony lady that I likewise learned the manner of my coming. It seems
that I arrived, quite unexpectedly, two hours after news had reached
the house of the ruin of my father's mines through inundation;
misfortunes, as it was expounded to me, never coming singly in this
world to any one. That all things might be of a piece, my poor
mother, attempting to reach the bell, fell against and broke the
cheval-glass, thus further saddening herself with the conviction--for
no amount of reasoning ever succeeded in purging her Welsh blood of
its natural superstition--that whatever might be the result of future
battles with my evil star, the first seven years of tiny existence had
been, by her act, doomed to disaster.

"And I must confess," added the knobbly Mrs. Fursey, with a sigh, "it
does look as though there must be some truth in the saying, after