What is the story starter of "The Monkey's Paw"?

Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnum villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess; the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical chances, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire.

The book a read was this book named wibty witches. And they made it scary when some one was about to die they would do really cools things. Like saying that there was a shadow and it was there own shadow. And it would talk about the footsteps and the breathing down the back of someones neck. Plus it would talk about the eyes glowing in the night time and peering through the bushes. That made it very scary. I was so scared of they book I coulud really read it at night because of the stuff they describe that would happen at night time. Thats how this author made this book very scary with out telling about all the glory details and similiar details like that. It's a very good book and I preferred you read this book for yourself to hear more details about the book.