Yet the scene is very vivid before me, though the affair took place--if it ever did take place--so long ago that I cannot be expected to remember the details.

The time when I must give up smoking was drawing near, so that I may have been unusually irritable, and determined, whatever the cost, to smoke my last pound-tin of the Arcadia in peace.

I think my brier was in my mouth when I did it, but after the lapse of months I cannot say whether there were three of them or only two.

So far as I can remember, I took the man with the beard first.
The incident would have made more impression on me had there been any talk about it.

So far as I could discover, it never got into the papers.
The porters did not seem to think it any affair of theirs, though one of them must have guessed why I invited the waits upstairs.