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So much for Dr. Jekyll Sandford, the Sandford of fifty-one weeks in the year.

Then, as inevitably as time rolls by, comes that final week; period of mania, of abandon; and in the mere sorcerous passage of a pair of whirring wings, Dr. Jekyll, the exemplary, is no more. In his place, wearing his shoes, audaciously signing his name even to checks, is that other being, Hyde: one absolutely the reverse of the reputable Jekyll; repudiating with scorn that gentleman’s engagements; with brazen effrontery denying him utterly, and all the sane conventionality for which the name has become a synonyme.

Worst of all, rank blasphemy, he not only refuses to set foot in that modern sanitary office of enamel and tiling, at the corner of Thirteenth and Main, below which, by day and by night, the “L” trains go thundering, but deliberately holds it up to ridicule and derision and insult.

CHAPTER II–THE PRESAGE OF THE WINGS

And I, the observer–worse, the accessory–know, in advance, when the metamorphosis will transpire.

When, on my desk-pad calendar the month recorded is October, and the day begins with a twenty, there comes the first premonition of winter; not the reality, but a premonition; when, at noon the sun is burning hot, and, in the morning, frost glistens on the pavements; when the leaves are falling steadily in the parks, and not a bird save the ubiquitous sparrow is seen, I begin to suspect.

But when at last, of an afternoon, the wind switches with a great flurry from south to dead north, and on the flag-pole atop of the government building there goes up this signal: [Transcriber’s Note: signal flag image here]; and when later, just before retiring, I surreptitiously slip out of doors, and, listening breathlessly, hear after a moment despite the clatter of the wind, high up in the darkness overhead that muffled honk! honk! honk! of the Canada-goose winging on its southern journey in advance of the coming storm–then I know.

So well do I know, that I do not retire–not just yet. Instead, on a pretext, any pretext, I knock out the ashes from my old pipe, fill it afresh, and wait. I wait patiently, because, inevitable as Fate, inevitable as that call from out the dark void of the sky, I know there will come a trill of the telephone on the desk at my elbow; my own Polly–whose name happens to be Mary–is watching as I take down the receiver to reply.

CHAPTER III–THE OTHER MAN

It is useless to dissimulate longer, then. I am discovered, and I know I am discovered. “Hello, Sandford,” I greet without preface.

“Sandford!” (I am repeating in whispers what he says for my Polly’s benefit.) “Sandford! How the deuce did you know?”

“Know?” With the Hyde-like change comes another, and I feel positively facetious. “Why I know your ring of course, the same as I know your handwriting on a telegram. What is it? I’m busy.”

“I’m busy, too. Don’t swell up.” (Imagine “swell up” from Sandford, the repressed and decorous!) “I just wanted to tell you that the honkers are coming.”

“No! You’re imagining, or you dreamed it!… Anyway, what of it? I tell you I’m busy.”

“Cut it out!” I’m almost scared myself, the voice is positively ferocious. “I heard them not five minutes ago, and besides, the storm signal is up. I’m getting my traps together now. Our train goes at three-ten in the morning, you know.”

“Our-train-goes-at-three-ten–in-the-morning!”

“I said so.”

“Our train?”

“Our train: the one which is to take us out to Rush Lake. Am I clear? I’ll wire Johnson to meet us with the buckboard.”

“Clear, yes; but go in the morning–Why, man, you’re crazy! I have engagements for all day to-morrow.”

“So have I.”

“And the next day.”

“Yes.”

“And the next.”

“A whole week with me. What of it?”

“What of it! Why, business–“

“Confound business! I tell you they’re coming; I heard them. I haven’t any more time to waste talking, either. I’ve got to get ready. Meet you at three-ten, remember.”