Even _Pearson's Weekly_ woke up to the disturbance at last, and Mrs.
Lynn Linton contributed an article entitled "What Women Might Do" to the
_Queen_. A paper called _Punch_, if I remember the name aright, made a
pun on the subject, which was partially intelligible with the aid of
italics and the laryngoscope. For my own part, I was too much occupied
in teaching my wife to ride a Bantam, and too busy upon a series of
papers in _Nature_ on the turpitude of the classical professoriate of
the University of London, to give my undivided attention to the
impending disaster. I cannot divide things easily; I am an indivisible
man. But one night I went for a bicycle ride with my wife. She _was_ a
Bantam of delight, I can tell you, but she rode very badly. It was
starlight, and I was attempting to explain the joke in the paper called,
if I recollect aright, _Punch_. It was an extraordinarily sultry night,
and I told her the names of all the stars she saw as she fell off her
machine. She had a good bulk of falls. There were lights in the upper
windows of the houses as the people went to bed. Grotesque and foolish
as this will seem to the sober reader, it is absolutely true. Coming
home, a party of bean-feasters from Wimbledon, Wormwood Scrubs, or
Woking passed us, singing and playing concertinas. It all seemed so safe
and tranquil. But the Wenuses were even then on their milky way.




II.

THE FALLING STAR.