The War of the Wenuses | Page 8

packet of Red Weed from a quasi-marsupial pouch in the roof of the Crinoline, and in an incredibly short space of time had rolled its carmine tendrils into slim cylinders, and inserted them within their lips. The external ends suddenly ignited as though by spontaneous combustion; but in reality that result was effected by the simple process of deflecting the optic ray. Clouds of roseate vapour, ascending to the dome of the canopy, partially obscured the sumptuous contours of these celestial invaders; while a soft crooning sound, indicative of utter contentment, or as Professor Nestl�� of the Milky Ray has more prosaically explained it, due to expiration of air preparatory to the suctional operation involved in the use of the Red Weed, added an indescribable glamour to the enchantment of the scene.
Humiliating as it may seem to the scientific reader, I found it impossible to maintain a Platonic attitude any longer; and applying my mouth to the embouchure 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 replied; "but I fail to grasp your meaning."
"She means," said the Examiner, raising himself for another last effort, "that it is time you changed your coal merchant," and so saying he died again.
I was thunderstruck: the Wenuses understood coals!
And then I ran; I could stand it no longer. The game was up, the cosmic game for which I had laboured so long and strenuously, and with one despairing yell of "Ulla! Ulla!" I unfastened the chain, and, leaping over the limp and prostrate form of the unhappy Tibbles, fled darkling down the deserted street.

II.
THE MAN AT UXBRIDGE ROAD.
At the corner a happy thought struck me: the landlord of the "Dog and Measles" kept a motor car. I found him in his bar and killed him. Then I broke open the stable and let loose the motor car. It was very restive, and I had to pat it. "Goo' Tea Rose," I said soothingly, "goo' Rockefeller, then." It became quiet, and I struck a match and started the paraffinalia, and in a moment we were under weigh.
I am not an expert motist, although at school I was a fairly good hoop-driver, and the pedestrians I met and overtook had a bad time. One man said, as he bound up a punctured thigh, that the Heat Ray of the Martians was nothing compared with me. I was moting towards Leatherhead, where my cousin lived, when the streak of light caused by the Third