back long ago in a way which Simpkins would have disliked intensely.
But a clergyman is different. He can't defend himself. He is obliged,
by the mere fact of being a clergyman, to sit down under every species
of insult which any ill-conditioned corner-boy chooses to sling at him.
There was a fellow in my parish, when I first went there, who thought
he'd be perfectly safe in ragging me because he knew I was a parson.
No later than this morning a horrid rabble of railway porters, and
people of that sort, tried to bully me, because, owing to their own
ridiculous officiousness, I was forced to travel first class on a
third-class ticket. They thought they could do what they liked with
impunity when they saw I was a clergyman. You don't know how common
that kind of anti-clerical spirit is. Simpkins is evidently swelled
out with it. It's going now, like an epidemic. Look at France and
Italy. The one chance we have of keeping Ireland free from it is to
isolate each case the moment it appears. By far the wisest thing we
can do is to have Simpkins killed at once."

"I don't quite see how you are going to manage it, J. J., without being
hanged yourself."

"Is he a married man?"

"No, he isn't."

"Then the matter's perfectly simple. I don't think I mentioned to you,
Major, that I travelled down in the train to-day with a professional
murderess."

"Do try to talk sense, J. J."

"Her speciality is husbands," said Meldon. "I don't know exactly how
many she has done for in her time, but there must be several. She said
their ghosts haunted her at night, and that sometimes she couldn't
sleep on account of them."

"I suppose," said Major Kent, "that it amuses you to babble like an
idiot in an asylum."

"It doesn't amuse me in the least. I feel desperately depressed when I
think of those poor fellows lying in their graves with ounces and
ounces of strychnine in their stomachs. That's not the kind of thing I
consider amusing, though you may. Miss King doesn't consider it
amusing either. She said she often cries when she thinks of her
victims, and very often she can't sleep at night."

"Miss King!" said the Major. "That's the name of the lady who has
taken Ballymoy House for the summer."

"Exactly. The lady whom I propose to marry to your friend Simpkins."

"Good Lord! J. J. Why? What has the poor woman done?"

"It's not so much what she has done," said Meldon, "that makes me think
she'd be a suitable ma