that no one has ever been
able to say which was cause and which effect. Anyhow, the field was
now a desolation and the Place had long been burned. It was while
going afoot to South Asphyxia, the home of my childhood, that I found
both my parents on their way to the Hill. They had hitched their team
and were eating luncheon under an oak tree in the center of the field.
The sight of the luncheon called up painful memories of my school
days and roused the sleeping lion in my breast. Approaching the
guilty couple, who at once recognized me, I ventured to suggest that I
share their hospitality.

"Of this cheer, my son," said the author of my being, with
characteristic pomposity, which age had not withered, "there is
sufficient for but two. I am not, I hope, insensible to the
hunger-light in your eyes, but--"

My father has never completed that sentence; what he mistook for
hunger-light was simply the earnest gaze of the hypnotist. In a few
seconds he was at my service. A few more sufficed for the lady, and
the dictates of a just resentment could be carried into effect. "My
former father," I said, "I presume that it is known to you that you
and this lady are no longer what you were?"

"I have observed a certain subtle change," was the rather dubious
reply of the old gentleman; "it is perhaps attributable to age."

"It is more than that," I explained; "it goes to character--to
species. You and the lady here are, in truth, two broncos--wild
stallions both, and unfriendly."

"Why, John," exclaimed my dear mother, "you don't mean to say that I
am--"

"Madam," I replied, solemnly, fixing my eyes again upon hers, "you
are."

Scarcely had the words fallen from my lips when she dropped upon her
hands and knees, and backing up to the old man squealed like a demon
and delivered a vicious kick upon his shin! An instant later he was
himself down on all-fours, headed away from her and flinging his feet
at her simultaneously and successively. With equal earnestness but
inferior agility, because of her hampering body-gear, she plied her
own. Their flying legs crossed and mingled in the most bewildering
way; their feet sometimes meeting squarely in midair, their bodies
thrust forward, falling flat upon the ground and for a moment
helpless. On recovering themselves they would resume the combat,
uttering their frenzy in the nameless sounds of the furious brutes
which they believed themselves to be--the whole region rang