dozen in a crowd, but the people one
met all by themselves, in the early summer mornings, stayed one's hand
repeatedly by the eager brightness of their eyes or a happy elasticity of
step. Once an out-patient at the Brompton Hospital, whom I had dogged all
the way down to Richmond Park, was cheated of a merciful end by dusk
falling just as I had him to myself. No; the dawn and the drunkard were
still my best chance. So it was that the wretch whose name I forget met
with his death in Hyde Park last Tuesday morning. I knew him by sight as
a pot-house loafer of the Charlton circle, but it was quite by chance that
I followed his uncertain footsteps through the Park, and saw him go
deliberately to bed in the drenching dew. His face filled in his tale; it
was another farrago of privation and excess. This was the type that
caused me no compunction: having aimed and focussed at the same time, as
my invention provides, I despatched the poor devil as he lay on his side,
with his hat over his eyes, and exposed my plate as he rolled over on his
face. It may be reckoned an offensive detail, but the click of my
instantaneous shutter coincided with the last clutter in his throat."

"I need hardly say that I had looked about me pretty thoroughly before
firing, and my first act after taking the photograph was to make another
wary survey of the scene. It had the advantage that one could see a
considerable distance in three directions, and in none of these, neither
right nor left along the path, nor yet straight ahead across the grass on
the edge of which my victim lay, was a living creature to be seen. This
was very reassuring, as I felt that I could see a good deal farther than
the report of my small automatic pistol was likely to be heard; for it is
a remarkable feature of most shooting cases, especially where a pistol has
been used, and in the open air, how seldom it is that a witness can be
found who has actually heard the fatal shot. In the fourth quarter, where
there was a bank of shrubbery behind some iron palings, I looked last, for
I was standing with my back that way. How shall I describe my sensations
on turning round? There was a young lad within a few feet of me, on the
other side of the palings; and this young lad was flourishing a revolver
in his right hand!"

"At first I made certain he had seen everything; but his blank and frank
bewilderment was more reassuring at a second glance, and at a third I
guessed what