(_With apologies to Mr Logan Pearsall Smith_)
I peeped in the Library of the Strange House and saw the dark figure of
a man bobbing about. There was, too, such a rush of nasty cheap perfume
through the door that I thought at first some of the bad portraits had
come to life. Or is it, I asked myself, someone engaged in secret
worship, the Baronet placating his private Mumbo-Jumbo or the Vicar
turning in weariness to Sasabonsum? And I thought of monstrous African
gods, of terrifying shapes and evil rites hidden in deep forests, of all
the wildness and wonder of the dark untamed Universe....
But when I looked again, I saw that it was only one of our whimsical
prosemen drenching his newly and meticulously written sheets with
inexpensive Parma Violet and Jockey Club to hide the smell of the lamp.