…Soon after getting into bed one night (in January, 1908), I fell into a deep, blank sleep, from which I was abruptly torn to find myself at the entrance to a forest, a forest I knew, by sight, only too well. It was the forest of Trouble, and, willy-nilly, I had to enter it. On all sides, leviathan trees of the blackest ebony shot up hundreds of feet heavenwards, permitting only the feeblest rays of light to penetrate through their forked branches. What species of trees they were I do not know, for nothing I had seen outside my dreams resembled them. Their trunks were smooth, and in their mirror-like surfaces I could see reflected the workings of their innermost organs, whilst the rising and falling of their hollow voices was wafted down to me from on high, like the murmuring of wind from some mountain top. Nimble hands…

…same plight. Oh, what a day we’re having!’ But, before she had finished, Mrs. Gardner (don’t ask me to describe her) had fled from the room with a shriek; and I, catching sight of myself in the mirror, had all but fainted. I was nude — quite nude — absolutely and wickedly nude!”Well, cheer up! I ejaculated, “For you have got plenty on now, at any rate” — which was only too true, for Mr. Simpson was one of those people who, not content with excluding the fresh air, only partly undress at night and go to sleep in more than half the clothes they have been wearing in the daytime. On our arrival in port he received the welcome news — which he certainly lost no time in making public — that he had been promoted to another and more lucrative living.Dreams of this sort generally augur well….