All the while I was casting about in my mind as to what means I could use to effect its capture.  I did think of killing it, and, on the whole, I rather wish that I had at any rate attempted slaughter,—­there were dozens of things, lying ready to my hand, any one of which would have severely tried its constitution;—­but, on the spur of the moment, the only method of taking it alive which occurred to me, was to pop over it a big tin canister which had contained soda-lime.  This canister was on the floor to my left.  I moved towards it, as nonchalantly as I could, keeping an eye on that shining wonder all the time.  Directly I moved, its agitation perceptibly increased,—­it was, so to speak, all one whirr of tremblement; it scintillated, as if its coloured scales had been so many prisms; it began to unsheath its wings, as if it had finally decided that it would make use of them.  Picking up the tin, disembarrassing it of its lid, I sprang towards my intended victim.  Its wings opened wide; obviously it was about to rise; but it was too late.  Before it had cleared the ground, the tin was over it.

It remained over it, however, for an instant only.  I had stumbled, in my haste, and, in my effort to save myself from falling face foremost on to the floor, I was compelled to remove my hands from the tin.  Before I was able to replace them, the tin was sent flying, and, while I was still partially recumbent, within eighteen inches of me, that beetle swelled and swelled, until it had assumed its former portentous dimensions, when, as it seemed, it was enveloped by a human shape, and in less time than no time, there stood in front of me, naked from top to toe, my truly versatile oriental friend.  One startling fact nudity revealed,—­ that I had been egregiously mistaken on the question of sex.  My visitor was not a man, but a woman, and, judging from the brief glimpse which I had of her body, by no means old or ill-shaped either.

If that transformation was not a bewildering one, then two and two make five.  The most level-headed scientist would temporarily have lost his mental equipoise on witnessing such a quick change as that within a span or two of his own nose I was not only witless, I was breathless too,—­I could only gape.  And, while I gaped, the woman, stooping down, picking up her draperies, began to huddle them on her anyhow,—­and, also, to skeddadle towards the door which led into the yard.  When I observed this last manoeuvre, to some extent I did rise to the requirements of the situation.  Leaping up, I rushed to stay her flight.

‘Stop!’ I shouted.

But she was too quick for me.  Ere I could reach her, she had opened the door, and was through it,—­and, what was more, she had slammed it in my face.  In my excitement, I did some fumbling with the handle.  When, in my turn, I was in the yard, she was out of sight.  I did fancy I saw a dim form disappearing over the wall at the further side, and I made for it as fast as I knew how.  I clambered on to the wall, looking this way and that, but there was nothing and no one to be seen.  I listened for the sound of retreating footsteps, but all was still.  Apparently I had the entire neighbourhood to my own sweet self.  My visitor had vanished.  Time devoted to pursuit I felt would be time ill-spent.