The War of the Wenuses | Page 5

ray must have missed me only by a second, for my elbow
which was not wholly covered by my wife's bulk was scorched, and my
hat has never since recovered its pristine gloss. Turning, I saw a
bus-driver in Knightsbridge leap up and explode, while his conductor
clutched at the rail, missed it and fell overboard; farther still, on the
distant horizon, the bricklayers on a gigantic scaffolding went off bang
against the lemon-yellow of the sky as the glance reached them, and the
Bachelors' Club at Albert Gate fell with a crash. All this had happened
with such swiftness, that I was dumbfounded. Then, after a few
moments, my wife slowly and reluctantly stepped aside and allowed
me to survey the scene. The Wenuses, having scored their first victory,
once more had retired into the recesses of the Crinoline. The ground for
some distance was littered with the bodies of the mashed; I alone

among men stood erect, my conscious companions being a sprinkling
of women, pictures of ungovernable fury.
Yet my feeling was not one of joy at my escape. Strange mind of
man!--instead, even with the Wenuses' victims lying all around me, my
heart went out to the Crinoline and its astral occupants. I, too, wished to
be mashed. And suddenly I was aware that my wife knew that I was
thinking thus. With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run
through the Park.

IV.
HOW I REACHED HOME.
I remember nothing of my flight, except the stress of blundering against
trees and stumbling over the railings. To blunder against some trees is
very stressful. At last I could go no further: I had run full tilt into a
gasworks. I fell and lay still.
I must have remained there some time.
Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, came--Beer. It
was being poured down my throat by my cousin's man, and I recollect
thinking that he must have used the same can with which he filled the
lamps. How he got there I cannot pretend to tell.
"What news from the park?" said I.
"Eh!" said my cousin's man.
"What news from the Park?" I said.
"Garn! 'oo yer getting at?" said my cousin's man. "Aint yer just been
there?" (The italics are his own.) "People seem fair silly abart the Pawk.
Wot's it all abart?"
"Haven't you heard of the Wenuses?" said I. "The women from

Wenus?" "Quite enough," said my cousin's man, and laughed.
I felt foolish and angry.
"You'll hear more yet," I said, and went on my way.
Judging by the names of the streets, I seemed to be at Kennington, and
it was an hour after dawn, and my collar had burst away from its stud.
But I had ceased to feel fear. My terror had fallen from me like a bath
towel. Three things struggled for the possession of my mind: the beauty
of Kennington, the whereabouts of the Wenuses, and the wengeance of
my wife. In spite of my cousin's man's beer, which I could still taste, I
was ravenously hungry; so, seeing no one about, I broke into a
chemist's shop and stayed the pangs on a cake of petroleum soap, some
Parrish's food, and a box of menthol pastilles, which I washed down
with a split ammoniated quinine and Condy. I then stole across the road,
and dragging the cushions from a deserted cab (No. 8648) into the cab
shelter, I snatched a few more hours of restless sleep.
When I woke I found myself thinking consecutively, a thing I do not
remember to have done since I killed the curate in the other book. In
the interim my mental condition had been chaotic, asymptotic. But
during slumber my brain, incredible as it may seem, stimulated and
clarified by the condiments of which I had partaken, had resumed its
normal activity. I determined to go home.
Resolving at any cost to reach Campden Hill Gardens by a sufficiently
circuitous route, I traversed Kennington Park Road, Newington Butts,
Newington Causeway, Blackman Street, and the Borough High Street,
to London Bridge. Crossing the bridge, I met a newspaper boy with a
bundle of papers, still wet from the press. They were halfpenny copies
of the Star, but he charged me a penny for mine. The imposition still
rankles.
From it I learned that a huge cordon of police, which had been drawn
round the Crinoline, had been mashed beyond recognition, and two
regiments of Life Guards razed to the ground, by the devastating
Glance of the Wenuses. I passed along King William Street and

Prince's Street to Moorgate Street. Here I met another newspaper boy,
carrying the Pall Mall Gazette. I handed him a threepenny bit; but
though I waited for twenty minutes, he offered me no