"A Word of Explanation," together with a "Final P. S. by M. T." at the end of the novel, establishes a "frame" for the story of Hank Morgan's adventures in Arthurian England. The narrator in this introductory chapter tells us how he came to hear parts of this story and that he read the rest of the story in a manuscript.
It happened that he was taking a tour through Warwick Castle when he met another man, who began walking with him and began telling him tales about such people as Sir Launcelot of the Lake, Sir Galahad, and other knights of the Round Table. In the course of the tour and the conversation, this man introduces to the narrator the idea of the transpositions of epochs and of bodies. He also mentions that it was he who put a bullet hole in the armor of Sir Sagramor le Desirous. This strange man disappears, however, before the narrator can ask him further questions about any of these subjects.
That evening, the narrator reads a tale from Sir Thomas Malory's famous book, Le Morte D'arthur; the tale he reads concerns how Sir Launcelot rescues Sir Kay and conquers three other knights in the process. As he finishes the tale, a knock is heard at the door: It is the stranger. After drinking four Scotch whiskeys, this man, whom the narrator met earlier in the day, tells his story.
He is, he says, an American from Hartford, Connecticut, and he is "a Yankee of Yankees." He learned blacksmithing from his father, horse doctoring from his uncle, and all manner of mechanical arts from a job which he had in a factory. Because of his skill in making and inventing things mechanical, he soon became head superintendent of the factory and supervised several thousand men. One day, however, an unfortunate accident occurred; while he was in a fight with one of his fellow employees, he was knocked unconscious with a crowbar.
When he came to, he was sitting in the grass under an oak tree, and then a man in "old-time iron armor from head to heel, with a helmet on his head the shape of a nail keg with slits in it" rode up and challenged him. Not understanding what was going on, the man from Connecticut, the stranger, told the man in armor to get "back to your circus." The knight backed off and lowered his lance, and the stranger climbed the tree. After some argument, the stranger agreed to go with the knight, even though he believed that the man was probably an escapee from a lunatic asylum.
At this point, the stranger seems to be drifting off to sleep, but before he does so, he gives the narrator a manuscript of his adventures, tales which he has written down from journals which he kept. As he leaves the stranger, who is falling asleep, the narrator begins to examine the manuscript; it is written on old, yellowed parchment over "traces of a penmanship which was older and dimmer still—Latin words and sentences: fragments from old monkish legends, evidently." Filled with curiosity, he begins to read.
