fe broke through the crowd and grasped me firmly by the arm.

"Pozzy," she said, "this is my opportunity and I mean to use it. I was
kept doing nothing between pages 68 and 296 of the other book, and this
time I mean to work. Look at these fools rushing to their doom. In
another moment they will be mashed, mashed to jelly; and you too, unless
I prevent it. I know what these Wenuses are. Haven't I had a scientific
training? You will be mashed, I tell you--mashed!"

So saying she banged on the ground with her umbrella, which, I remember
now with sorrow, we had bought the week before at Derry and Toms' for
five-and-eleven-three.

Meanwhile a few of the men had to some extent recovered, and headed by
the R.S.P.C.A. Secretary had formed a deputation, and were busy talking
on their fingers to the Wenuses. But the Wenuses were too much occupied
in dropping into each other's eyes something from a bright flask, which
I took to be Beggarstaffs' Elect Belladonna, to heed them.

I turned in response to a tug at my swallow-tails from my wife, and when
I looked again a row of Wenuses with closed lids stood before the
Crinoline. Suddenly they opened their eyes and flashed them on the men
before them. The effect was instantaneous. The deputation, as the glance
touched them, fell like skittles--viscous, protoplasmic masses, victims
of the terrible Mash-Glance of the Wenuses.

I attributed my own escape to the prompt action of my wife, who stood
before and shielded me, for upon women the Mash-Glance had no effect.
The ray must have missed me only by a second, for my elbow which was not
wholly covered by my wife's bulk was scorched, and my hat has never
since recovered its pristine gloss. Turning, I saw a bus-driver in
Knightsbridge leap up and explode, while his conductor clutched at the
rail, missed it and fell overboard; farther still, on the distant
horizon, the bricklayers on a gigantic scaffolding went off bang against
the lemon-yellow of the sky as the glance reached them, and the
Bachelors' Club at Albert Gate fell with a crash. All this had happened
with such swiftness, that I was dumbfounded. Then, after a few moments,
my wife slowly and reluctantly stepped aside and allowed me to survey
the scene. The Wenuses, having scored their first victory, once more had
retired into the recesses of the Crinoline. The ground for some distance
was littered with the bodies of the mashed; I alone among men stood
erect, my conscious compani