He was dressed in black silk, he had a sort of coat, or rather shirt, of black silk, with ample sleeves which were tied at either wrist tightly with brilliant golden threads. This shirt, or coat, came down to his knees, and appeared to be seamless. His trousers, which were very full and baggy, were caught at his ankles by similar golden threads. His feet were bare save for a pair of sandals. He had nothing upon his head, which was close cropped. His face was clean shaven. The only thing approaching an ornament, besides the golden threads of which I have spoken, was an enormous many-coloured and complicated coat-of-arms embroidered upon his breast, and showing up magnificently against the black.
He had appeared so suddenly that I almost ran into him, and he said to me breathlessly, and with a very strong nasal twang, “Can you talk English?”
I said that I could do so with fluency, and he appeared greatly relieved. Then he added, with 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.