Excerpt from Brass Faces It was three o'clock on the most sultry summer's morning that he could remember. It was probably near daylight, but one huge cloud had hung like a motionless pall over London all through the night. He had left the neighbourhood of Kensington after an unconscionably prolonged bachelor gathering, and, stifled and oppressed, had decided to walk home. But in the streets no breath of wind stirred, hardly one breath of air. It had seemed at first a remarkable experience. Along by Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park a strange mist had hung over the railings, leaving the streets clear except for the gloom of the night and the black cloud. He had passed hardly a soul, and those few moved silently, like things that walk in their shrouds. Now, just near the Monster Tavern, came monstrous raindrops, evaporating as they fell. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.