E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
by
1911
"From Ghaisttes, Ghoulies and long-leggity
Beasties and Things that go
Bump in the night—
"Good Lord, deliver us!"
I have pleasure in acknowledging the courtesy of the proprietors of"Shurey's Publications" by whose permission "The Cigarette Case" isincluded in the present volume. Also it has been suggested that adefinition should be given of the word that forms the volume's title.That word means "contrary to the course of the Sun."
The three or four "To Let" boards had stood within the low paling aslong as the inhabitants of the little triangular "Square" could remember,and if they had ever been vertical it was a very long time ago. They nowoverhung the palings each at its own angle, and resembled nothing somuch as a row of wooden choppers, ever in the act of falling upon somepasser-by, yet never cutting off a tenant for the old house from thestream of his fellows. Not that there was ever any great "stream" throughthe square; the stream passed a furlong and more away, beyond theintricacy of tenements and alleys and byways that had sprung up since theold house had been built, hemming it in completely; and probably thehouse itself was only suffered to stand pending the falling-in of a leaseor two, when doubtless a clearance would be made of the wholeneighbourhood.
It was of bloomy old red brick, and built into its walls were the crownsand clasped hands and other insignia of insurance companies long sincedefunct. The children of the secluded square had swung upon the low gateat the end of the entrance-alley until little more than the solid top barof it remained, and the alley itself ran past boarded basement windows onwhich tramps had chalked their cryptic marks. The path was washed andworn uneven by the spilling of water from the eaves of the encroachingnext house, and cats and dogs had made the approach their own. Thechances of a tenant did not seem such as to warrant the keeping of the"To Let" boards in a state of legibility and repair, and as a matter offact they were not so kept.
For six months Oleron had passed the old place twice a day or oftener, onhis way from his lodgings to the room, ten minutes' walk away, he hadtaken to work in; and for six months no hatchet-like notice-board hadfallen across his path. This might have been due to the fact that heusually took the other side of the square. But he chanced one morning totake the side that ran past the broken gate and the rain-worn entrancealley, and to pause before one of the inclined boards. The board bore,besides the agent's name, the announcement, written apparently about thetime of Oleron's own early youth, that the key was to be had at NumberSix.
Now Oleron was already paying, for his separate bedroom and workroom,more than an author who, without private means, habitually disregards hispublic, can afford; and he was paying in addition a small rent for thestorage of the greater par