ouchure of the pipette, warbled faintly in an exquisite
falsetto:

"Ulat tanalareezul Savourneen Dheelish tradioun marexil Vi-Koko for the
hair. I want yer, ma honey."

The effect was nothing short of magical. The rhythmic exhalations ceased
instanteously, and the tallest and most fluorescent of the Wenuses,
laying aside her Red Weed, replied in a low voice thrilling with kinetic
emotion:

"Phreata mou sas agapo!"

The sentiment of these remarks was unmistakable, though to my shame I
confess I was unable to fathom their meaning, and I was on the point of
opening the scullery door and rushing out to declare myself, when I
heard a loud banging from the front of the house.

I stumbled up the kitchen stairs, hampered considerably by my wife's
skirt; and, by the time I had reached the hall, recognised the raucous
accents of Professor Tibbles, the Classical Examiner, shouting in
excited tones:

"Let me in, let me in!"

I opened the door as far as it would go without unfastening the chain,
and the Professor at once thrust in his head, remaining jammed in the
aperture.

"Let me in!" he shouted. "I'm the only man in London besides yourself
that hasn't been pulped by the Mash-Glance."

He then began to jabber lines from the classics, and examples from the
Latin grammar.

A sudden thought occurred to me. Perhaps he might translate the
observation of the Wenus. Should I use him as an interpreter? But a
moment's reflection served to convince me of the danger of such a plan.
The Professor, already exacerbated by the study of the humanities, was
in a state of acute erethism. I thought of the curate, and, maddened by
the recollection of all I had suffered, drew the bread-knife from my
waist-belt, and shouting, "Go to join your dead languages!" stabbed him
up to the maker's name in the semi-lunar ganglion. His head drooped, and
he expired.

I stood petrified, staring at his glazing eyes; then, turning to make
for the scullery, was confronted by the catastrophic apparition of the
tallest Wenus gazing at me with reproachful eyes and extended tentacles.
Disgust at my cruel act and horror at my extraordinary habiliments were
written all too plainly in her seraphic lineaments. At least, so I
thought. But it turned out to be otherwise; for the Wenus produced from
behind her superlatively radiant form a lump of slate which she had
extracted from the coal-box.

"Decepti estis, O Puteoli!" she said.

"I beg your pardon," I rep