His was the opening incident of the series of extraordinary and
altogether incongruous events which took place afterwards, as it
appeared to T. Tembarom, like scenes in a play in which he had become
involved in a manner which one might be inclined to regard humorously
and make jokes about, because it was a thousand miles away from
anything like real life. That was the way it struck him. The events
referred to, it was true, were things one now and then read about in
newspapers, but while the world realized that they were actual
occurrences, one rather regarded them, when their parallels were
reproduced in books and plays, as belonging alone to the world of pure
and highly romantic fiction.

"I guess the reason why it seems that way," he summed it up to
Hutchinson and Little Ann, after the worst had come to the worst, "is
because we've not only never known any one it's happened to, but we've
never known any one that's known any one it's happened to. I've got to
own up that it makes me feel as if the fellows'd just yell right out
laughing when they heard it."

The stranger's money had been safely deposited in a bank, and the
stranger himself still occupied Tembarom's bedroom. He slept a great
deal and was very quiet. With great difficulty Little Ann had
persuaded him to let a doctor see him, and the doctor had been much
interested in his case. He had expected to find some signs of his
having received accidentally or otherwise a blow upon the head, but on
examination he found no scar or wound. The condition he was in was
frequently the result of concussion of the brain, sometimes of
prolonged nervous strain or harrowing mental shock. Such cases
occurred not infrequently. Quiet and entire freedom from excitement