…it! Jim was a burglar, mister, a real top-sawyer in his profession, and there wasn’t his equal in London. I knew it when I first met him, and he knew all about me — that I was one of the cleverest filchers — pocket -pickers — in Whitechapel. Well, mister, we took to one another at first sight, and, after a few months courting, agreed that, if we were to marry and have a quiet time of it, we must give up our present line of business. Burglary is all very well for a single man, if he is ‘pinched’ no one misses him, but when it comes to seven years’ penal for a man with a wife and half a dozen children, it isn’t good enough. Jim and I were sensible enough to see that, mister, and we both came to the conclusion that, after one more haul, we…

…Some time ago I dreamed I left my body, and, after travelling at a great rate through the still night air, arrived at the sphere I designate phantomania. The spot where I settled down was a lonely railway cutting, and I at once remarked on the loud moaning and sighing of the wind through the telegraph wires, and the curious jar, jar, jar of the iron railroad; and the metals which grew less and less like ordinary metals the longer I looked at them, suddenly became imbued with life, and, rising on end, rushed blindly hither and thither and then lay down again. Presently I heard whistle of an approaching train. Nearer, nearer, and nearer it came, and as it whizzed past me all the passengers put their heads out of the windows simultaneously, and burst into peal upon peal of mad, hilarious laughter. There was then a tremendous…