one, Doctor Glyphic occupies that room. Passing on to page one
hundred, he will find the first entry reads as follows "Balder
Helwyse, Cosmopolis. Room 29."

In no trifling mood do we call attention to these two names, and,
above all, to their relative position in the book. Had they both
appeared upon the same page, this romance might never have been
written. On such seemingly frail pegs hang consequences the most
weighty. Because Doctor Glyphic preferred the humble foot of the
ninety-ninth page to the trouble of turning to a leading position on
the one hundredth; because Mr. Helwyse, having begun the one hundredth
page, was too incurious to find out who was his next-door neighbor on
the ninety-ninth, ensued unparalleled adventures, and this account of
them.

Our present purpose, by the reader's leave, and in his company, is to
violate Doctor Hiero Glyphic's retirement, as he lies asleep in bed.
Nor shall we stop at his bedside; we mean to penetrate deep into the
darksome caves of his memory, and to drag forth thence sundry
odd-looking secrets, which shall blink and look strangely in the
light of discovery;--little thought their keeper that our eyes should
ever behold them! Yet will he not resent our, intrusion; it is twenty
years ago,--and he lies asleep.

Two o'clock sounds from the neighboring steeple of the Old South
Church, as we noiselessly enter the chamber,--noiselessly, for the
hush of the past is about us. We scarcely distinguish anything at
first; the moon has set on the other side of the hotel, and perhaps,
too, some of the dimness of those twenty intervening years affects our
eyesight. By degrees, however, objects begin to define themselves; the