at the moment.

However, enough of describing the machine in its relation
to myself. I have said sufficient, I think, to convince you
that whatever its make, its age, and its limitations, it was
an extraordinary affair; and, once convinced of that, you may
the more readily believe me when I tell you that it has gone
into business apparently for itself--and incidentally for me.

It was on the morning of the 26th of March last that I
discovered the curious condition of affairs concerning which
I have essayed to write. My family do not agree with me as to
the date. They say that it was on the evening of the 25th of
March that the episode had its beginning; but they are not
aware, for I have not told them, that it was not evening,
but morning, when I reached home after the dinner at the
Aldus Club. It was at a quarter of three A.M. precisely that
I entered my house and proceeded to remove my hat and coat,
in which operation I was interrupted, and in a startling
manner, by a click from the dark recesses of the library. A
man does not like to hear a click which he cannot comprehend,
even before he has dined. After he has dined, however, and
feels a satisfaction with life which cannot come to him before
dinner, to hear a mysterious click, and from a dark corner,
at an hour when the world is at rest, is not pleasing. To say
that my heart jumped into my mouth is mild. I believe it jumped
out of my mouth and rebounded against the wall opposite back
though my system into my boots. All the sins of my past life,
and they are many--I once stepped upon a caterpillar, and I have
coveted my neighbor both his man-servant and his maid-servant,