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.