entirely returned. He might have been living to this hour had he not
mentioned something about the brutality of _The Island of Dr. Moreau_.
That settled it. I had heard that absurd charge once too often, and
raising my Blaisdell binaural stethoscope I leaped upon him. With one
last touch of humanity, I turned the orbicular ivory plate towards him
and struck him to the earth.

At that moment fell the Fourth Crinoline.




III.

THE TEA-TRAY IN WESTBOURNE GROVE.


My wife's plan of campaign was simple but masterly. She would enlist an
army of enormous bulk, march on the Wenuses in Westbourne Grove, and
wipe them from the face of the earth.

Such was my wife's project. My wife's first step was to obtain, as the
nucleus of attack, those women to whom the total loss of men would be
most disastrous. They flocked to my wife's banner, which was raised in
Regent's Park, in front of the pavilion where tea is provided by a
maternal County Council.

My mother, who joined the forces and therefore witnessed the muster,
tells me it was a most impressive sight. My wife, in a nickel-plated
Russian blouse, trimmed with celluloid pom-pons, aluminium pantaloons,