to
Great Orme's Head and back again. Senile dementia had already laid its
spectral clutch upon my wizened cerebellum when I was rescued by some
kindly people, who tell me that they found me scorching down Hays Hill
on a cushion-tired ordinary. They have since told me that I was singing
"My name is John Wellington Wells, Hurrah!" and other snatches from a
pre-Wenusian opera.

These generous folk, though severely harassed by their own anxieties,
took me in and cared for me. I was a lonely man and a sad one, and they
bored me. In spite of my desire to give public expression to my
gratitude, they have refused to allow their names to appear in these
pages, and they consequently enjoy the proud prerogative of being the
only anonymous persons in this book. I stayed with them at the Bath Club
for four days, and with tears parted from them on the spring-board. They
would have kept me for ever, but that would have interfered with my
literary plans. Besides, I had a morbid desire to gaze on the Wenuses
once more.

And so I went out into the streets again, guided by the weird Voice, and
_via_ Grafton Street, Albemarle Street, the Royal Arcade, Bond Street,
Burlington Gardens, Vigo Street and Sackville Street, Piccadilly, Regent
Street, Pall Mall East, Cockspur Street and Whitehall, steadily wheeled
my way across Westminster Bridge.

There were few people about and their skins were all yellow. Lessing,
presumably in his _Laocoon_, has attributed this to the effects of sheer
panic; but Carver's explanation, which attributes the ochre-like tint to
the hypodermic operation of the Mash-Glance, seems far more plausible.
For myself I abstain from casting the weight of my support in either
scale, because my particular province is speculative philosophy and not
comparative dermatology.

As I passed St. Thomas's Hospital, the tullululation grew ever louder
and louder. At last the source of the sound could no longer be
disguised. It proceeded without doubt from the interior of some soap
works just opposite Doulton's. The gate was open and a faint saponaceous
exhalation struck upon my dilated nostrils. I have always been
peculiarly susceptible to odours, though my particular province is not
Osmetics but speculative philosophy, and I at once resolved to enter.
Leaning my bicycle against the wall of the archway, I walked in, and was
immediately confronted by the object of my long search.

There, grouped picturesquely round a quantity of la