it was a dark and stormy night . the wind howled, thunder rumbled over the plains and lightning struck the church tower, some trees and a cow. roads turned into little rivers and little rivers overflowed. hail clattered on roofs and broke windowpanes.
professor bile was reported to have ventured outside to study the aerodynamic properties of horizontal rain. he had been taken up by a sudden blizzard and carried high in the air, to be deposited head first in a cucumber field some way ahead, while his umbrella carried on the mad flight all by itself (it was found five days later, swinging in an apple tree some seven miles to the south).

the flames in the little room’s fireplace danced in the wind and smoke was blown into the room, mingling there with mr pride’s cigarette smoke. fafnir hissed and puffed at everything and dr shy cowered underneath a blanket.
the window rattled and was blown open several times, frightening both fafnir and dr shy alike. each time this happened mr pride calmly put his book down, walked over to the window, stuck his head out (he saw a tree fly by twice, but he wasn’t sure it was the same one both times) yelled “nice weather” over the roar, adding in a sad voice after the windows were closed and the curtains drawn “but a shame there isn’t enough wind to fly a kite”. dr shy just shivered and shaked.

around midnight the roof in lady tart’s apartments started to leak, so she, having no real knowledge of kitchen utensils, put the strainer underneath the dripping inflow (but she did it gracefully and with style). a little while later the water had found its way into the room below. it fell in big drops from the roof on dr shy’s head.

the next morning the sun rose bright and shining in a pale, washed out, blue sky. it was rising over mists and vapours as mr pride carefully avoided stepping into puddles when he went out to buy the morning papers.
and in the early afternoon dr shy was sitting near the open window, he hadn’t quite recovered yet from the wet and uncomfortable night on top of the wardrobe and that is probably why, while trying to solve the crosswords, he failed to notice someone had coloured in all the squares with black.