aged 54, of Maybury Tenements, were circulating among the crowd offering
matches for sale. They have nothing to do with this story, but their
names and addresses make for verisimilitude; or at least, I hope so. In
case they do not, let me add that Mary Griffin wore a blue peignoir
which had seen better days, and Herbert Pearson's matches struck
everywhere except on the box.

With a mental flash we linked the Crinoline with the powder puffs on
Wenus. Approaching it more nearly, we heard a hissing noise within, such
as is made by an ostler, or Mr. Daimler grooming his motor car.

"Good heavens!" said Swears, "there's a horse in it. Can't you hear? He
must be half-roasted."

So saying he rushed off, fraught with pity, to inform the Secretary of
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; while I hurried
away to tell Pendriver the journalist, proposing in my own mind, I
recollect, that he should give me half the profits on the article.

Pendriver the journalist, so called to distinguish him from Hoopdriver
the cyclist, was working in his garden. He does the horticultural column
for one of the large dailies.

"You've read about the disturbances in Venus?" I cried.

"What!" said Pendriver. He is as deaf as the _Post_, the paper he writes
for.

"You've read about Venus?" I asked again.