ous kind we must look out--and so must the
spectator.

This ass with the unpronounceable name was probably more insane than
usual this week or two back, and may get back upon his bearings by and
by, but he was over the sanity-border when he shot the President. It is
possible that it has taken him the whole interval since the murder of
the King of Italy to get insane enough to attempt the President's life.
Without a doubt some thousands of men have been meditating the same act
in the same interval, but new and strong interests have intervened and
diverted their over-excited minds long enough to give them a chance to
settle, and tranquilize, and get back upon a healthy level again. Every
extraordinary occurrence unsettles the heads of hundreds of thousands
of men for a few moments or hours or days. If there had been ten kings
around when Humbert fell they would have been in great peril for a day
or more--and from men in whose presence they would have been quite safe
after the excess of their excitement had had an interval in which to
cool down. I bought a revolver once and travelled twelve hundred miles
to kill a man. He was away. He was gone a day. With nothing else to do,
I had to stop and think--and did. Within an hour--within half of it--I
was ashamed of myself--and felt unspeakably ridiculous. I do not know
what to call it if I was not insane. During a whole week my head was in
a turmoil night and day fierce enough and exhausting enough to upset a
stronger reason than mine.

All over the world, every day, there are some millions of men in
that condition temporarily. And in that time there is always a
moment--perhaps only a single one when they would do murder if their man
was at hand. If the opportunity comes a shade too late, the chances are
that it has come permanently too late. Opportunity seldom comes
exactly at the supreme moment. This saves a million lives a day in the
world--for sure.

No Ruler is ever slain but the tremendous details of it are ravenously
devoured by a hundred thousand men whose minds dwell, unaware, near the
temporary-insanity frontier--and over they go, now! There is a day--two
days--three--during which no Ruler would be safe from perhaps the half
of them; and there is a single moment wherein he would not be safe from
any of them, no doubt.

It may take this present shooting-case six months to breed another
ruler-tragedy, but it will breed it. There is at least one mind
somewhere which