an
would now be allowed to go free.

"Oh yes, according to the rules," he answered, "he certainly is
allowed to go free; but I do not think his sense of honour would
permit him so to do."

"Is he then of very noble family?" I inquired.

"Not at all; he is a scientist. We have a great many scientists in our
club. They are all so disappointed at the way in which human progress
has been impeded, and at the impossibility of a continuous evolution
of knowledge-accumulation, that they find no more attraction in life.
And he is dead this time," he continued, shading his eyes to look, as
soon as a second report had flashed.

"By the way," I asked, "I suppose you only exterminate--er--members of
the club?"

The fellow smiled with a little disdain. "Oh, it would be illegal for
us to exterminate outsiders. But of course if you would like to
join...."

"Why, that's never a woman going over to the tree!" I cried.

"Oh yes, we have quite a number of intellectual women and upper-class
ladies of advanced ideas in the club. But I do not think that lady is
an intellectual; she is more probably a passion-wreck."

She was indeed a very handsome woman in the prime of life, dressed
with a little too much ostentation and coquetry in a sleeveless,
transparent white blouse and a skirt to match.

My informant turned round to a skinny young student with hog's-bristle
hair, and made some vulgar jest about its "being a pity to waste such
a good piece of flesh." He was a superman, and imagined, falsely I
believe, that an air of bluff cynicism, a Teutonic attempt at
heartiness, was the true outward sign of inward superiority. The young
man fired, and the woman raised the arm that was not shattered by the
bullet. He fired again, and she fell on her knees, this time with a
scream.

"I think you had better have a shot," said the sharpshooter to my man.
"I'm rather bad at this."

Indeed his hand was shaking violently.

My interlocutor bowed, and went over to take the rifle. The skinny
student took his place by my side, and began talking to me as well.
"He's an infallible shot that Mueller there," he said, nodding at my
former companion.... "Didn't I tell you?"

To my great relief the passion-wrecked lady fell dead. I was getting
wildly excited, rent between horror and curiosity.

"You see that man in the plumed hat?" said the student. "He is coming
round to say on whom the lot has fallen. Ah, he is coming this way,
and making a sign a