The War of the Wenuses | Page 6

change. This will
give some idea of the excitement then beginning to prevail. The Pall
Mall had an article on the situation, which I read as I climbed the City
Road to Islington. It stated that Mrs. Pozzuoli, my wife, had constituted
herself Commander-in-Chief, and was busy marshalling her forces. I
was relieved by the news, for it suggested that my wife was fully
occupied. Already a good bulk of nursemaids and cooks, enraged at the
destruction of the Scotland Yard and Knightsbridge heroes by the
Wenuses' Mash-Glance, had joined her flag. It was, said the Pall Mall,
high time that such an attack was undertaken, and since women had
been proved to be immune to the Mash-Glance, it was clearly their
business to undertake it.
Meanwhile, said the Pall Mall, nothing could check the folly of the
men. Like moths to a candle, so were they hastening to Kensington
Gardens, only to be added to the heap of mashed that already had
accumulated there.
So far, the P.M.G. But my mother, who was in the thick of events at the
time, has since given me fuller particulars. Notwithstanding, my mother
tells me, the fate of their companions, the remainder of the constabulary
and military forces stationed in London hastened to the Park, impelled
by the fearful fascination, and were added to the piles of mashed.
Afterwards came the Volunteers, to a man, and then the Cloth. The
haste of most of the curates, and a few bishops whose names have
escaped me, was, said my mother, cataclysmic. Old dandies with
creaking joints tottered along Piccadilly to their certain doom; young
clerks in the city, explaining that they wished to attend their aunt's
funeral, crowded the omnibuses for Kensington and were seen no more;
while my mother tells me that excursion trains from the country were
arriving at the principal stations throughout the day, bearing huge loads
of provincial inamorati.
A constant stream of infatuated men, flowing from east to west, set in,
and though bands of devoted women formed barriers across the

principal thoroughfares for the purpose of barring their progress, no
perceptible check was effected. Once, a Judge of notable austerity was
observed to take to a lamp-post to avoid detention by his wife: once, a
well-known tenor turned down by a by-street, says my mother, pursued
by no fewer than fifty-seven admirers burning to avert his elimination.
Members of Parliament surged across St. James' Park and up
Constitution Hill.
Yet in every walk of life, says my mother, there were a few survivors in
the shape of stolid, adamantine misogynists.
Continuing my journey homewards, I traversed Upper Street, Islington,
and the Holloway Road to Highgate Hill, which I ascended at a sharp
run. At the summit I met another newspaper boy carrying a bundle of
Globes, one of which I purchased, after a hard-driven bargain, for two
shillings and a stud from the shirt-front of my evening dress, which was
beginning to show signs of ennui. I leaned against the wall of the
Highgate Literary and Scientific Institute, to read it. The news was
catastrophic. Commander Wells of the Fire Brigade had, it stated,
visited Kensington Gardens with two manuals, one steam engine, and a
mile of hose, in order to play upon the Crinoline and its occupants.
Presuming on the immunity of persons bearing his name during the
Martian invasion, the gallant Commander had approached too near and
was in a moment reduced to salvage.
Pondering on this news, I made for Parliament Hill, by way of West
Hill and Milfield Lane. On the top I paused to survey London at my
feet, and, to get the fullest benefit of the invigorating breeze, removed
my hat. But the instant I did so, I was aware of a sharp pain on my
scalp and the aroma of singed hair. Lifting my hand to the wounded
place, I discovered that I had been shaved perfectly clean, as with a
Heat Razor. The truth rushed upon me: I had come within the range of
the Mash-Glance, and had been saved from total dissolution only by
intervening masonry protecting my face and body.
To leave the Hill was the work of an instant. I passed through John
Street to Hampstead Road, along Belsize Avenue and Buckland
Crescent to Belsize Road, and so to Canterbury Road and Kilburn Lane.

Here I met a fourth newspaper boy loaded with copies of the St. James'
Gazette. He offered me one for seven-and-sixpence, or two for half a
sovereign, but it seemed to me I had read enough.
Turning into Ladbroke Grove Road I quickly reached Notting Hill, and
stealthily entered my house in Campden Hill Gardens ten minutes later.

BOOK II.
London under the Wenuses.

I.
THE DEATH OF THE EXAMINER.
My first