The carpet whereon I was stretched was soft and rich, the furniture was of ebony, with gilt ornamentations--I think French, of the Empire period--while close to me was a grand piano, and upon a chair beside it a woman's garden hat. I looked at that hat critically. It belonged to a young woman, no doubt, for it was big and floppy, of soft yellow straw, with cherries, and had strings to tie beneath the chin. I pictured its owner as pretty and attractive. About that room there were screens from Cairo, little inlaid coffee-tables from Algiers, quaint wood-carvings of the Madonna beneath glass shades, fashioned by the peasants of Central Russia, Italian statuary, and modern French paintings. The room seemed almost a museum of souvenirs of cosmopolitan travel. Whoever was its owner, he evidently knew the value of _bric-a-brac_, and had picked up his collection in cities far afield. The door was closed, and over it hung a rich _portiere_ of dark-blue plush edged with gold. The sculptured over-mantel, in white marble, was, I quickly detected, a replica of one I had seen and admired in the Bargello, in Florence. One object, however, aroused my wonder. It was lying on the floor straight before me, an object in white marble, the sculptured arm of a woman with the index-finger outstretched. The limb was of life-size proportions, and had apparently been broken off at the elbow. I staggered unevenly to my feet, in order to further pursue my investigations, and then I saw, upon a pedestal close to me, the marble figure of a Phryne with its arm broken. In the centre of that handsome apartment I stood and gazed wonderingly around. My transition from that bizarre sitting-room in Chelsea to this house, evidently in the country, had been effected in a manner beyond comprehension. My surprising surroundings caused my weakened brain to reel again. I was without hat or overcoat, and as I glanced down at my trousers they somehow did not seem to be the same that I had been wearing on the previous night. Instinctively I felt that only by some extraordinary and mysterious means could I have been conveyed from that close-smelling lodging in Chelsea to this country mansion. The problem uppermost in my mind was the identity of the place where I had thus found myself on recovering my senses, and how I got there. My eyes fell upon the push of an electric-bell. My position, lying there injured upon the carpet, demanded explanation, and without further hesitation I walked across and pressed the ivory button. I heard no sound. The bell must have rung far away, and this gave me the idea that the house was a large one. Intently I listened, and a few minutes later heard a footstep. The door opened, and an elderly man-servant, with grey whiskers, appeared in the entry asking--"Did you ring, sir?" "Yes," I answered. "Will you kindly inform me where I am?"