The story begins with an introduction of the principal cast of characters in language that implies social respectability and wisdom. But then the narrator undercuts this implication in an ironic twist:
THAT very singular man, old Dr. Heidegger, once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, and a withered gentlewoman, whose name was the Widow Wycherly.
Dr. Heidegger's friends are introduced in terms that are quickly undermined by their actual behavior. They are, in the very first sentence of the story, Dr. Heidegger's "venerable friends," a term used both by the narrator and by Dr. Heidegger himself when referring to his assembled guests. To be "venerable" is to be granted respect, generally due to age, wisdom, or character. The reader is, at least briefly, led to imagine four respectable figures, wise with the knowledge and experience of many years. It is with great irony, then, that the narrator exposes the foolishness and vanity of these "three white-bearded gentleman" and the one "withered gentlewoman" assembled by Dr. Heidegger, who is of questionable character himself. The reader does not expect "venerable friends" of advanced age to behave with the downright immaturity that comes to define their behavior throughout the story.
