Page:On everything.djvu/98

On Everything that violent nasal twang again, "You take me out of this!"

There was a shut taxi-cab passing and we got into it, and when he had got out of the crush, where several people had already stopped to stare at him, he lay back, panting a little, as though he had been running. The taxi-man looked in suddenly through the window, and asked, in the tone of voice of a man much insulted, where he was to drive to, adding that he didn't want to go far.

I suggested the "Angel" at Islington, which I had never seen. The machine began to buzz, and we shot northward.

The stranger pulled himself together, and said in that irritating accent of his which I have already mentioned twice, "Now say, you, what year's this anyway?"

I said it was 1909 (for it happened this year), to which he answered thoughtfully, "Well, I have missed it!"

"Missed what?" said I.

"Why, 1903," said he.

And thereupon he told me a very extraordinary but very interesting tale.

It seems (according to him) that his name was Baron Hogg; that his place of living is (or rather will be) on Harting Hill, above Petersfield, where he has (or rather will have) a large house. But the really interesting thing in all that he told me was this: that he was born in the year 2183, 82