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
di