What followed will always remain confused in my memory. I seem to recall Professor Dewey upon his back with closed eyes, and something standing above him in the dim light like an immemorial avenger. I seem to glimpse a supremely ghastly exterior—two great ears protruding from a narrow and greenish skull, and a great nose like an elephant’s trunk showing briefly in profile.

Then fire—a deluge of colored fire, which shot out of the creature’s nose and mouth, fire from hell, fire from beyond Arcturus. I saw the professor’s eyes open, and I saw him stare at the thing for a moment in triumph. The exultation in his face was quickly replaced by agony and despair. He threw out his arms as if endeavoring to ward off an immediate doom, and while I watched, his face shriveled and blackened.

“I was right,” he shrieked. “The Egyptians did not worship men. God pity my poor soul!”

I did not stay to comfort my stricken friend. I ran shrieking from the room, and out of the house into the street. I looked up to see thick black smoke pouring from an upper window, but I turned in no alarm. I ran wildly across deserted squares and through winding alleys and finally found my way to a leering subway entrance.

I fled insanely down the stairs and climbed over the turnstile without depositing a fare. Luckily no one saw me. In a moment I was in a roaring train, my arms flung about a drunken beggar, and into his astonished ears I poured a tale that made him gasp and shake his head.

“You young ’uns always get it somewhere,” he grimaced. “I wish I had your luck.”

I have always found newspaper men exceedingly prosaic. The following cutting from a New York paper demonstrates my point:

A fire in the upper West Side caused a great deal of disturbance yesterday morning when police reserves from three stations fought with firemen to keep excited passers-by from entering the burning building. For two hours thirty or forty hooded men endeavored to rescue the inmates and caused a great deal of disturbance. The police were unable to explain why utter strangers should take such an interest in one poor perishing wretch, since it was later ascertained that the house was occupied by an eccentric professor and misanthrope who is suspected of bootlegging operations. Patrolman Henley, from the West 93rd Street Station, claims that one of the would-be rescuers removed his hood for a brief moment, and that his face was covered with fur, and eaten away at the corners. Luckily for Patrolman Henley’s reputation he is known to suffer from migraine, and it is probable that what he imagined he saw had no basis in fact.

The wildly excited attempts of strangers to enter the building completely frustrated operations, and the unfortunate inmate perished. For a moment he was seen at the window, and those who were standing on the sidewalk immediately underneath declare that his hair and beard were actually on fire.