An Unassuming Beginning

It was a perfectly ordinary Thursday when Percy Weatherby woke up. It continued to be ordinary as he dressed himself in his customary grey tweed suit and ate the same breakfast he ate every weekday – two pieces of toast, a hard-boiled egg and a cup of coffee. At the normal time of a quarter past eight, he put his hat on his head and his watch in his pocket, picked up his briefcase and stepped out of his front door. The weather was fairly average for London in March, and the sky was an unexciting shade of blue-grey. When he reached the end of his road, he summoned a hansom in the standard fashion. The ride to the bank was rather dull; as they followed the usual route, he looked out of the window and watched the airships making their stately way across the sky, but they failed to do anything unexpected.

At twenty to nine, he got out of the cab, paid the driver and walked up the steps to the bank, where he said hello to the doorman as he always did. He reached his desk at ten to nine, hung up his coat and hat and sat down to work. Nothing particularly noteworthy happened throughout the morning. He took his lunch break at half past twelve, as he liked to do. In the afternoon he spoke to some investors, but none of them were especially interesting. At five o'clock, he tidied his desk, put his coat and hat back on and left. He bought the evening paper and read it in the cab on the way home. There was nothing particularly shocking in it. He arrived home at a quarter to six, took his coat, hat and tie off and put the kettle on. The day was wholly unremarkable.

At about ten past six, a sky pirate fell into his back garden.

He was, understandably, rather surprised.