ONFOUND it all! But these minds of ours are curious fabrics!"

I had awakened, and remembering my dream, burst into the exclamation just recorded. It was a curious dream, seemingly without meaning, yet striking from a psychological standpoint, through the vividness of its realism and the fantastic juxtaposition of thoughts and scenes I previously experienced. The first part of it was a medley of incoherency and misty vagueness, too dim to recollect, but the conclusion was pictured in my mind's eye so perfectly, that it seemed as though the original were still before me: a little maid singing the same little song upon some metropolitan vaudeville stage. And these were the words she sang, with great seeming significance, to me in my dream:

"Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking what a good

thing it would be,

If the women were transported, far beyond the

northern sea."

She sang it over and over again—more like a vocal fugue—ever discovering new charms of melody, new graces of expression. As she sang, strange foreboding impressions came to me, and her roguish face, enticing it is true, exasperated me.

"Begone!" I had cried. "Go to your far northern sea and leave me in peace!"

As I thus abjured her, her face became sad, compassionate; she held out her arms, beseechingly; then vanished from my dream. But in her place there was—ah! God!—the personification of one of my wildest dreams, the one woman who in all history had interested me. Grand, imperial, the mistress of kings, the friend of philosophy and art, she stood there—before me—so close I could have touched her—and just as I had always imaged her. She smiled upon me with careless abandon; then her beautiful face grew solemn and thoughtful, as, superbly tragic and with infinite pathos, she murmured, "After me, the deluge."

She too had gone: I was awake. Deeply I pondered on the incident. As an active member of our psychological society, I kept a terse record of my dreams, in fact, had made such a modest study of them that never was I at loss for the clew to their causation. But the present one baffled me. True, years ago I had seen and heard the little Quakeress in a vaudeville show: and as truly, had I, in my student days, romanticised upon that wondrous, divinely-feminine figure, whose powerful personality had left its impress so strongly on the pages of history. But I had not recollected either in years; I had not deviated from my regular habits; I had gone to bed at my usual hour; and I could think of nothing outside my customary bill of fare which I had partaken of. In short, the little occurrence was inexplicable.

Soon, however, other sensations came over me as I acknowledged the futility of my efforts, tossed the covers back, and sprang out of bed. Something was wrong, evidently out of place—I unconsciously recognized this, but no effort of analytical reasoning could substantiate the verdict of my intuition. Bright rays of sunlight danced hither and thither; through the partially raised window, the perfume of flowers was wafted to me; the bustling life of the awakening city saluted my ears—"Ah! I have it now! Where are the sparrows?" I cried.

They were silent. No squabbling on the walks, no fierce battles on my window ledge, no chattering and scolding and noise incessant, nothing to tell me of their presence. Yet the spring was but fairly dawning and it was in the hey-day of mating time. How often, of late, had they wakened me with their mimic warfare, their martial contests, their boisterous wooing of their females! And how often had I prodigally burned a quarter-hour, watching and studying, this, the most important epoch of their lives! But they were gone: this trite demonstration of the laws of natural and sexual selection had seemingly been withdrawn from nature's bill-boards. With an unusual feeling of strangeness, I completed my dressing, only to discover new cause for thought, new whys and wherefores. I had asked to be called at six sharp, and here it was seven-thirty. It was evident that I had missed my train, so canceling the engagement with a slight manifestation of irritation, I whistled down the speaking-tube for my customary kettle of hot water. No reply. I listened: the house was as silent as a tomb: apparently, no one was stirring. Strange thoughts flashed to my mind. Visions of bloody horrors, burglars, thugs, hidden mysteries, murder, and what not, rose before me. This was a very strange, an unprecedented occurrence. I decided to investigate.

But first, a word for myself. I am a young fellow of twenty-eight or thirty; comfortably, though not more than so, endowed with the world's goods; and alone upon the face of the earth, save for some distant, very distant relatives. The further to satisfy my modest but somewhat expensive tastes, I devote an occasional hour to literary drudgery—but a drudgery which permits me to be wholly my own master, little caring whether school keeps or not. It is now some two years or more that I have resided at my present quarters, which, for various reasons, are very satisfactory. The house, a cosy, two-story suburban residence, is the possession of a nice widow-lady, who, with her three spinster daughters, manages to eke out a comfortable livelihood from a small annuity and the sums they receive from me every quarter. I am the sole lodger, in fact, boarder too, though I more often dine down town or at the club. My feminine friends unite in calling me the "crusty young bachelor" and my jovial, bohemian comrades, "the misogynist." Why I have been given these respective apellations, I can readily understand; but how I have earned them I cannot conceive. I am not a woman-hater, as you may by this time have supposed me to be, far from it. Still, I must confess, I am not a woman-lover. Yet in this case I see no reason why the absence of the positive should imply the presence of the negative. I have never loved nor loved in vain, have never experienced anything which should condition me as I am—perhaps I was born that way. In short, while I do not like woman, I do not dislike her; but with such an object of neutral tints, I neither go out of my way to cultivate nor to avoid. "Confound it! How that quaint, little song rings in my ears!"

"If the women were transported, far beyond the

northern sea."

Mentally cursing the composer, I descended the stairs. No sign of life: the kitchen just as it was left last evening. It was evident that they were still a-bed. Filled with gloomy forebodings, I first knocked, then successively forced the doors to the three chambers. Each was deserted. The beds had all been slept in; but I noted with surprise, the presence of the garments, shoes, etc., which had been discarded on disrobing the previous evening. So accustomed was I to every dress in the household, that I ransacked the wardrobes, closets, and chests of drawers. Nothing was missing and I smiled to myself as I pictured their flight, clad in nothing but their sleeping robes. Imagine my consternation when I discovered in each bed, the night-dresses of their respective occupants. "Shameful!" I thought; but at the same time, I found myself entertaining a malicious desire to have been a witness of the event, to have beheld the three attenuated spinsters and their ebom-pointed mother, fleeing like veritable Eves—whither, I knew not.

A myriad hypotheses suggested themselves but I could entertain none of them. I had never suspected my sedate landlady nor her sober daughters of any wildness, and this very unconventional procedure took me quite a-back. Perhaps something serious had occurred? I would lock up the house and inform the chief of police.

On the front steps I found the morning paper, still as tightly rolled up as when it left the carrier's hand. "What's this? Phew!" These were the staring headlines which met my astonished eye:

A world catastrophe!!!

The scientific world astounded!!!

The femininity of the earth is no more!!!

All peoples have felt the heavy hand of horror!!!

The confutation of all religion, science and philosophy!!!

A universal wail of sorrow!!!

Special session of congress!!!

And much more which I dashed through to get to the pith of the matter. Impossible as it seemed and more like a gigantic hoax, here it is, in substance:

Some time last night, it had been generally agreed upon as midnight, in some mysterious, unaccountable way, every woman, the whole world over, had suddenly disappeared. There had been no warning: there had been no remains. It was total annihilation or total translation. Very graphic was the description of a great state ball in Berlin. A thousand couples were whirling in giddy waltz when twelve o'clock struck. A shudder, like the flapping of a great sail, was heard, and a thousand astonished men were rooted to the floor, speechless, each clasping the empty costume of his partner of the previous moment. Thus it had happened everywhere: none were spared, not even the female babes in the cradle. Nor had the shock been less severe among the rest of the animal king¬dom. The male gender of all species remained, but the female had vanished. ("Ah," I mused, "that accounts for the sparrows.")

I hastily skimmed the account. This dreadful holocaust had put all the world aghast. Science was speechless as was also philosophy. Religion, while, on the whole, dumbfounded, among several sects there was whispering of the fulfillment of prophecy. There was no accounting for it. The immutability of natural law, the towering fabric of philosophic speculation, the dizzy atheistical negation of all supernaturalism, the adamantine division, between the knowable and the unknowable, of agnosticism; these, all these, and every system of thought and mode of action, had been overthrown, confuted by this one fell blow. A blow, so light, that the sleeper awakened not in the passing.

I could hardly trust my senses. Was I dreaming? Had the editors or the printers gone mad? Or was it nothing but a gigantic American sell? With my mind awhirl, I was just preparing for the acceptation of the latter when I suddenly paused at the gate, remembering my deserted house and the sparrows. Hardly daring to think, I hurried down the street. At the corner, I stumbled into an excited group, evidently discussing the situation.

They were local acquaintances so I did not hesitate to join them. I was amused, however, at their appearance. Their attires indicated hasty and indiscriminate dressing. Shoes were dirty, cravats missing or all awry, clothes unbrushed—in short, a general air of seediness was the most conspicuous feature. And there, I could have sworn to it, was old Dottlyboy, the precisest and neatest man of the neighborhood, without his face washed.

"Oh! It's terrible! I can hardly collect myself. What's going to become of us? The cook has gone, too, and I haven't had my breakfast. I don't see why she couldn't have stayed. O my! O my! And at my time of life too!" Thus chattered the old gentleman who lived across the way from me, mumbling and chewing his words as though his mouth were full of hot mush—he had forgotten his false teeth.

"Is it true," I asked, "that woman is no more?"

"It is true," they gasped in solemn chorus.

"Hurrah! Hurrah!" I shouted. But evincing no sign of jubilancy, I looked at them, then asked "Why don't you rejoice? Come, give a hearty three times three and a tiger with me. Now—hip—hip—"

But just then I was so violently kicked from behind that other emotions claimed my attention. I whirled about with the intention of planting my deadly right in the most vulnerable portion of my assailant's anatomy, when—thwack!—old Dottlyboy's cane descended on my pericranium with periculous energy. I had a hazy impression of being suffocated in a cloud of invective, buffets, kicks and blows; of being tossed about in the bowels of a gregarious maelstrom; and of being vomited forth, a disintegrated mass, to recline in the contumely of the gutter.

"It is a very evident fact," I murmured as I retired to the house to change my garments, "that they feel their loss deeply. I wonder what this most reminds me of—a freshman rush, a bargain counter crush, or a scrimmage on the gridiron?"

As I prepared myself anew to sally forth, I pondered deeply upon the perversity of human nature. Day after day, I had been the companion of one or more of the group, which had so viciously assailed me, in the rides to and from the city; hour after hour, I had listened to these suburbanites' complaints against womankind; yet here—and here—and here (I was feeling my bruises) are the convincing proofs of their inconsistency. Resolving to be more prudent in my demeanor and to hide my joy beneath a show of deepest melancholy, I was soon aboard a down-town car.

So ingrained was the habit, that I found myself glancing up with an air of guilty apprehension every time the car stopped to take on ladies. Each time, I resumed my paper, breathing a sigh of relief, for among them there were never any ladies. I think it was the first time I had ever come down on such a late car without injuring my personal feelings, by relinquishing my seat, in order to satisfy the highly impersonal one which conventionality demanded of me and designated as courtesy. There were no charming creatures to hang pathetically onto the straps or to gaze beseechingly at me in a usually successful endeavor to soften my marble heart.

The streets were full of people, all discussing the one topic, while in front of the great papers, thousands were grouped, awaiting with bated breaths, the advent of every bulletin. One thing surprised me greatly: without exception, every window contained cards which informed the public that men or boys were wanted. For once, labor was at a premium and jobs at a discount. It was remarkable, the airs which the laborers now put on. It had not taken them long to grasp the situation. Proud disdain and stony indifference had taken the place of their whining and begging. "What an expansion of the currency," I thought.

Especially were the employment agencies crowded—not by applicants for positions but by prospective employers. The celerity with which wages rose was startling, particularly in those branches of labor hitherto wholly carried on by women. By mid day the almost utter futility of endeavoring to obtain men, willing to cook, make beds and wash dishes, for anything less than fabulous salaries was manifest. As a result, everybody decided to patronize the restaurants. The crush, everywhere, for meals, was frightful—so terrible that I resolved to do my own cooking at home. Of course, not for long, for so many would now enter upon this lucrative business, that a few days would see everything on its original footing.

A week soon passed, during which the newspapers were filled with fierce controversies and the whole industrial system pulsating with unprecedented vigor. Never had there been such a boom before. Everything was running full blast. A reduction of the population by one-half was equal to a doubling of the currency. There was one point in this stimulus, however, which the world had evidently forgotten to reckon on. That, while the productive facilities had all been revived, the consumptive facilities had been reduced fifty per cent. Thus, there would be extraordinary activity in trade, and, since there was a greater demand than supply of labor, wages would rise; but following the wages, there would come a rise in all prices. At first, labor, being in the ascendancy, would buy liberally of all necessaries and many of the luxuries which it had hitherto been denied; but when prices reached their proportionate ratio with wages, labor would be unable to buy a bit more than in the days before the great catastrophe. The outcome was obvious to any dabbler in the "dismal science," though neither I nor the world realized or comprehended that outcome.

One day, about two weeks after the occurrence of the wonderful event, I went down to call on Charley Eggleston, a young artist friend of mine. On the way, I dropped into my barber's for a shave. Imagine my surprise on finding a shopful of customers and an alarming dearth of barbers. While waiting his appearance, I looked over my companions and was astonished at the general picture of slouchiness which they presented. Horrors! I glanced in the mirror and beheld myself with soiled shirt, collars and cuffs, two waistcoat buttons missing, four day's growth of beard, a dirty handkerchief in my hand, the knees of my trousers bagged and the creases of the same most conspicuous by their absence, my—but why relate it all—I was as slouchy as any of them. Just then the barber arrived on the scene. I had always looked upon him as a sober, industrious man, devoted to the welfare of his family; but in he came, as drunk as a boiled owl, and ordered us all out of his shop. I remonstrated with him, though to no effect, for he informed us that he was going to close up shop. His assistants were all drunk or lost and it was impossible for him to do the work single handed.

"And besides," he concluded, "What's the good of working anyway? What can I do with my money after I've earned it?"

So he turned us out, bag and baggage, forgot to lock the door, and returned to finish his carousal.

Though Charley was a very neat fellow, careful of his appearance and a ladies' man, I knew him too well to be ashamed to visit him in my present guise. At the same time I decided to postpone contemplated visits on my lawyer and publisher. My journey, drawing me thither, I happened to pass by the publishing house. The place was closed and there was a sign informing the public that Walker & Sons had retired from business. Glancing curiously about me, I was surprised at the number of "To Let" signs on every hand. Across the street, two men were putting up the shutters to their shops and on looking down the street, I observed several others occupied in like manner. At this juncture I unexpectedly met my lawyer. He was in a hurry, but paused long enough to tell me he had given up his practice and was going out of town, and that he had placed my papers and everything relating to me in his possession, in a safe-deposit vault at my banker's. He explained his course by informing me that he had enough to live on, so there was no use in earning more. Continuing my journey, I finally arrived at Eggleston's rooms, marveling, as I did so, at the amount of drunkenness I had witnessed on the streets.

As I entered the hallway I met Charley. He was dressed so carelessly that I felt quite relieved on the score of my own appearance.

"Hello, old man!" he cried. "Haven't seen you for an age. I was just going out, but—"

"Going out!" I stood aghast. Charley Eggleston, the immaculate, the ladies' man, the dressiest man about town, going out on the street in such a guise!

Understanding my surprise, he said "O what's the difference. No one to see me anyway, you know. But come in—it was nothing pressing—and have a chat."

His apartments were just as bad: the confusion and disorder was indescribable. It was also evident that he had been neglecting his painting, and on chiding him about it, he said "What's the use? I can't go on with it. First my model and then my muse deserted me. Besides, what does it matter whether—by the way, how are you getting along with that new poem of yours? You read me the first four stanzas—have you it finished?"

"I—I—but— —" I looked at him in dismay. Those four stanzas, lonely in their solitude, still lay upon my desk—since they were not self-procreative, they had neither multiplied nor replenished my thought. "But you see, Charley, I must acknowledge that—that— —"

Here we both burst into laughter, confessed our sins, and agreed that in some unaccountable way we had lost incentive. Having become aware of our own condition, we hit upon the idea of visiting our different chums to note how they were progressing, and we promised ourselves a very enjoyable evening.

Finding it impossible to obtain a cab, we resolved to walk. What a different scene the streets presented to that of a few short weeks ago! Everybody was disconsolate and gloomy, the stores nearly all closed, and the theatres deserted. Everything seemed going the wrong way. I noticed particularly, from a study of their faces, that everybody was suffering from dyspepsia. The absence of good cooking was beginning to tell. There was no laughter nor manifestations of good nature; but wrangling and fighting had become the order of the day, due, I surmised, among other things, to the loss of their stomachs. While excessive drinking had become quite common among all classes, it was especially noticeable among the workingmen. Nor was that all. Their demeanor was greatly changed. Dissatisfaction was the prevailing expression of their faces, while they carried themselves with an air of independence and were insolent and insulting to those of the upper classes they chanced to encounter. After some strolling I became aware that the little courtesy, previously to be found on our thoroughfares, had entirely disappeared. Selfishness had become the ruling passion. As I scrutinized the faces of all I met, I was surprised at the hardness and bullishness of their expression: all the higher, nobler attributes seemed lo have been eliminated. Not only were the sidewalks thronged by the natives, but the rural population had evidently deserted the country to come to town. With an old farmer, enquiring his way, we had quite a chat. He seemed to mourn, above all, the loss of "Maria," who had worked shoulder to shoulder with him for "well-nigh thirty year." First his hired men had quit work; then his boys had gone off to the city; and, since there was no one dependent upon him, he could not see why he was not entitled to a vacation too. So here he was, out to have a good time, spending his savings of years in pursuance thereof. But above all, in the crowds that surged about me, the most prominent feature was the woeful absence of buttons.

An hour later found us seated at the hospitable board of Trombley, "the connoiseur" (not in art, however, but in gourmandizing) his chums called him. His chef, whom he had been paying an extravagant salary, had left him; but he was an adept in cookery, conversant with all the mysteries of the chafing-dish. Many were the lamentations he made as i he served us, and many the apologies, too. At our earnest solicitation he had made some of his charming butter-cakes, and as we "fell to," with haunting recollections of our own cuisine, he watched us with an anxious air.

"There, there, man!" he suddenly exclaimed.

Charley was thunderstruck. He was in the act of helping himself to a liberal supply of honey when thus admonished. Trombley saw that our mutual surprise demanded an explanation, so he gave it.

"Do you know that that is most likely the last honey which will ever pass your lips? It cost me just exactly twenty dollars and it was the last pint in the market. Haven't you heard that the honey-bees have ceased producing?"

"Ceased producing!" in chorus.

"Yes, alas! It is true. In every hive, when the queen was found to be missing, confusion and anarchy ensued. They first turned to and ate all the honey, then separated, and are now scattered from Dan to Ber-Sheba. In the absence of authority and a guiding hand, each bee shifted for itself, and it is said that the country is almost uninhabitable, so ferocious have they become. It is certain that none can survive the winter."

The next person we visited was Prescott, an old college chum, whom we had never lost sight of and who had devoted himself to the cause of temperance. Repeated ringings of his bell having elicited no response, and hearing the sound of singing, we ventured within. Tracing the voice, we arrived at the kitchen. There, surrounded by a startling array of bottles, in a slatternly dressing-gown and singing with maudlin gravity a temperance hymn, was Prescott, terrifically drunk. He evidently did not recognize us, though our reception was a warm one, for he took pot shots at us with a Smith & Wesson, as we tumbled over each other in the haste of our exit.

On recovering our equanimity, we decided to next visit George Curtis, a bright young fellow, with a future before him we were certain. As his place was some distance away, we took the shortest cuts possible. Just as we were emerging from a very dark street we heard a voice, subdued but with great dramatic intensity, soliloquizing, " 'To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether to—'" But at that moment our footsteps aroused the person, who whirled about, pointed a pistol at us and cried "Hands up!"

We hastily complied. As the man stepped closer to rob us, Charley exclaimed "Good God! It's Haskins!"

Haskins was a well known and quite successful actor and an old-time bohemian crony of ours. The recognition was mutual and explanations followed. Haskins had always lived up to the last cent of his salary, and when the great catastrophe had burst, was playing, but penniless. His forte being in comedy and extravaganza, the chief attraction of which lay in the feminine charms displayed, he was at once thrown out of em¬ployment. Since then he had done nothing and now he was famishing. To night he had resolved to carve his way to at least a full stomach.

"Why didn't you seek work?" I asked.

"Do I look like a laborer?" was his Yankee reply.

"But good gracious! Think of the disgrace!"

"There is no disgrace," he rejoined. "My father's dead: my mother, sisters, wife, all gone. I am disgraced in no body's eyes I care for, and as for yourselves, you'll be doing as bad before the month is out.

"But business is business," he concluded. "I have resolved to become a shining light in my new profession. So hands up! It's best to get the hand in by beginning on one's friends."

And he began with such vigor that when he bid us good night, every valuable we had with us had been transferred to his possession. Several times we were thus halted before we arrived at Curtis' house. It seemed as though everybody was taking to the highway as a means of obtaining an easy livelihood. If it went on at this rate, we soon would be reduced to the condition of the Scilly Islanders, who lived comfortably by taking in each other's washing.

If Curtis were at home, he was certainly in oblivion—drunk or otherwise for our repeated knocks availed nothing. Remembering our experience with Prescott, we were very cautious this time, keeping a sharp lookout for spring-guns and man traps. We ransacked the first floor and were thoroughly overhauling the second when we discovered him. Unseen, through an open door, we gazed upon the peculiar scene presented to us. In immaculate evening dress, patent leathers, gloves, etc., complete, attired as though for a wedding, he stood before a large table, contemplatively regarding a strange assortment of articles. There was a case of champagne, one of port, another of bourbon, several bottles of absinthe, a hypodermic syringe, a complete opium-smoker's outfit, and many other drugs and paraphernalia for like purposes. George himself was terribly changed. His naturally slender face was quite attenuated and of extreme pallor; his eyes were dilated and intensely bright; while beneath them lay great, concentric circles of scarlet and black. He seemed lost in the depths of a thought which embraced the articles before him. We crept silently away and down the stairs, then returned, noisily stumbling over every third one, swearing like troopers, and making the greatest possible racket. He turned to greet us, shook hands cordially and gayly plunged into the thought which was uppermost in his mind.

"Just in time for my wedding! No (as we glanced at the general miscellany), don't think I'm starting a harem—I'm only deliberating on my choice. I'm a monogamous man, you know. But now that you fellows are here, I want you to stand up with me—but, I had forgotten, I must first indicate my preference. Come, help me to choose. Now what do you say to this?" As he raised a bottle of bourbon aloft and sang:

"Here's to the good old whiskey, drink it down!

Here's to the good old whiskey, drink it down!

Here's to the good old whiskey,

For it makes you feel so frisky,

Drink it down! Drink it down! Drink it down!"

"Horrible!" I cried.

"Ah, perhaps you don't like it. We'll pass on to the next. Here we have absinthe, the genuine extrait d'absinthe of happy France. It is composed, I am informed, of the flowering tops of wormwood, of angelica and sweet flag root, the dittany leaves of Crete, of star-anise fruit and many other aromatics, macerated in the purest of alcohol. What a charming bride! What an exquisite, emerald light flashes forth from its translucent depths! What joys unutterable to the fond lover who satiates desire, discovers bliss in the circumambiency of such a mistress! Think of the pleas—"

"George, you must stop this! At once! Be a man!" I commanded. But he rattled gayly on.

"Truly, comrade, I agree with you. It is not wholly to my taste. Surely, a more charming bride awaits me. Perhaps this is she. Hasheesh, the simplest and most enticing of maidens—the leaves and the flowers of the hemp plant, graciously mingled in due proportion with butter-fat. How simple, but how fascinating! Yet she is but an immature child when compared with this, a glorious woman. One kiss, and she fills your veins with liquid fire, which through your being, boils and bubbles, sizzles, froths and foams, effervescing with tremendous throbs of maddening pleasure. One kiss, and she takes your hand, leads you up inaccessible heights, away from the world and its sorrows—up—up—till you walk with the immortals, sip golden nectar from chalices all-divine, till in the arms of Morpheus, sweet child of Somnus, you dream, and dream, and dream—a bliss ineffable!

"Yet," he seemed to pause and reflect, "such graces are too vigorous for me. More calm and peaceful must my mistress be. One, to lead me to that Lethean plunge through enervating, placid, drowsy joys; one, to steal away my senses with insidious stealth; one, to love me so that I loose my thought unaware, to kiss me from dull, brooding care into sweet forgetfulness. And here I find her—the soul of the poppy, the radiant spirit of mercy, the ministering angel of man. Sweet, sweet, the soft embrace of thine arms! Sweet, sweet—far more than sweet—divine the wondrous pleasure of communion with thee! Two mistresses have I wooed, and won, and lost. Wooing and winning, on thy soft bosom wilt I slumber through the lapse of ages, through countless cycles of time, through all eternity. Though virgin still, hast thou three daughters—divine fruition of an immaculate conception. Thus, as on thy chaste breast I sleep, forgetful, wilt these three graces—Morphia, Codeia, Narcotin—watch over us; thus, deep in somnolent languor, wilt they guard our dreams and lull us to soft melancholy; thus, as we journey down the shadowy slopes of time, wilt they shroud us in oblivion's winding sheet. Come, dear maiden of the Orient, forget thy mountain home of Akkisar, and in forgetting, bring forgetfulness to me. One caress, and my troubles flee me; one kiss from thy pale-red lips, and my senses sway and leave me; one benediction, and in thy mercy I cease to be; once mine, I am no more. O ye gods!—No more— No more—No more."

His voice died slowly away. We were silent. What could we do? As we stood helplessly by, his mood changed, he was himself again.

"Dear friends, bear with me: my affliction, as you know, is great. What may seem the raving of a madman is but the dreary monody of a soul, crying out from amid the ashes of dead joys, lost hopes, vanished ideals. As you well know, I have wooed, won and lost two mistresses—why not a third? First, the fair daughter of Mnemosyne; my success, barely inchoate, was brought to a glorious dawn by my second; the third, which I wed tonight, becomes their requeiscat in pace. You remember my music; how I devoted myself to it; how well I mastered it; my successes, small though they were; the beginnings of recognition, of homage: but you will remember that there was a something lacking, a something to stir hearts of adamant; to kindle as with fire the emotions; to wring the heart-strings; to tear the gasping soul from its habitation of clay; to send it hurtling through the glories of empyreal bliss. My technique was superb—the equal of the greatest masters—but the power of soul-stirring, of soul-translation lay not there. In a dimly conscious way I understood the vacancy, the absence of the inspiration, and I awaited it, trusting faithfully in my intuitive foresight. The moment came; the time was ripe; I had mastered all save that; and that I awaited to master me. The dawn burst; an angel's hand swept with responsive touch the harmonies of my genius. As yet strangers, did my talent and my genius meet. I burst into song—and why not?—the void was filled—I loved—before high Heaven, aye, and the utter¬most depths of Hell, I loved. The world embraced me; her riches, her glory, her every treasure were cast at my feet; and sublimer still, the sublimest of all, I was loved. Then did I soar to higher and yet higher levels; my power became absolute; my genius, transcendant. But amid the dizzy thunders of a world's applause, I essayed grander and still grander flights, ever beholding with bated breath my guiding light, my polestar, my Alice. O Alice! It was all for you, all through you, all by you! Then came the marriage—but a night intervened—a few short hours before the great consummation of my life. O God! The morning never broke!—Unending night in a vale of sorrow and tears! As a fiery meteor dashing athwart the sky, for a moment dazzling the dreamer before it is gone, so flashed she across my life, and in passing, struck the grandest symphonies of my soul. But the hand is wanting, the singer dumb, the strings broken. Think of it; conjure it; give rein to the wildest flights of fantastic imagination—from out the ghastly, unknown wastes of space, of the universe, some supreme force, some hell-bound, conscious power, seized and drew my Alice from me; forsooth! To glut the idle whim or empty vagary of some celestial monster. They say that thus was lost all women: to me, there was lost but Alice: but to the world was lost incentive. Woman, the one great inciting force of man is gone. The one gauge of man's morality, of man's ideality, of man's nobility, is gone. O mourn, ye sons of earth! Cry out in blackest despair! The past is dead: there is no future. Ye fall—down—down—down—to brutishness, to corruption, to death. Yield to your prurient desires; satiate your passions in wild debauchery; forget that ye are men. It is the panacea, the only one, to remove you from your miseries. Sin! Sin! Sin! Sin and be unexcelled by Hell itself! Heed me, ye sons of woman! The afflatus of inspiration is upon me. Steep thyselves in the ephemeral somnolency of vice. To morrow you are no more. There is no future—woman is gone. Thy tremendous civilization, thy knowledge, thy culture of ten times ten thousand years is crumbling on the verge—disintegration, primeval chaos awaits it, and you, and all. I see brute struggling with brute, and these brutes are men. Down into the oblivion of night I behold the towering fabric of man's achievements, the giddy pinnacles of his creation, the miraculous productions of his finite will, sink in a sea of blood. Evanescent are the glories of his enterprise. Loose the dogs of war! Tear the throat and rend the flesh! Kill! Maim! Destroy! Tumult, anarchy and chaos shall reign, and amid the horrors of such reign, shall vanish the modicum of man's nobility—the remnant of that which was lost with womankind. A space of internecine strife, then all is over. The earth will traverse the heavens as of yore; the sun, moon, stars and constellations will go their accustomed rounds; the universe will seem not susceptible to the change: but on the earth, man, bird, beast and insect; all sentient and insensate life; all organic structure and superstructure; will cease to be!"

We were dumbfounded, awed to quiescence. Apparently unconscious of our presence, he lighted a tiny alcohol lamp and prepared his opium and pipe. When the sickening smoke had well filled the apartment, we glided out, unwelcome guests from the marriage feast. We were moody, weighed down, not only with the horror of what had been, but with a horror of what was to be. We had seen enough so parted at the corner. The cars had ceased running and I was forced to wearily tramp home through the silent city—silent, save for the many deeds of violence and cries for help which came to my eyes and saluted my ears. Murder and robbery stalked abroad, and I was thankful when my home was reached. But I could not sleep: a weird phantasmagoria of anticipatory events haunted me as I tossed restlessly about. The impression left by Curtis was not too easily forgotten. Somewhere towards morning, the house was invaded by burglars; but I was indifferent and told them to help themselves. I began to feel, though not clearly, that in some way, both my position and the position of all men, were analogous with that of Curtis.

The sun was slipping from view in the west; the air was balmy and gracious; all nature seemed at peace: but silently, exhausted and in the extreme throes of hunger, my comrade and I trudged along the deserted road.

Hush! We heard a fall of hoofs and sprang into the bushes. Grasping our bludgeons firmly, desperation nerving us to action, we awaited the traveler's approach. Round a turn in the road he came, leading a heavily loaded horse. He was an aged man, with a fringe of white hair crowning the once oval but now fearfully emaciated face, the nose of which too distinctly proclaimed the Semitic type. Nearer and nearer he came; but for his gray hairs I felt no veneration, no mercy.

Suddenly, just as he came opposite our place of concealment, we sprang upon him. He made as though to draw a pistol, but I struck him sharply on the head, stretching him in the dust. Then we unloaded the horse. The burden was heavy and our hearts rejoiced as with trembling fingers we drew our knives and cut the many wrappings. O the bitter disappointment! Out rolled rubies, pearls, diamonds, the choicest of gems, and gold without end. In our rage we kicked the prostrate form and trampled the treasure into the dust. Recovering consciousness, the old man scrambled to his feet and on beholding the wanton dissipation of his wealth, burst into wild lamentations, calling upon the Father of Israel to smite the Gentile and repossess him of his goods. At first, in half-insane jocosity, I joined him, shrieking that portion of the Merchant of Venice where Shylock bewails the loss of his ducats and his daughter. But the old scoundrel's howling transcended mine, so I struck him roughly on the mouth and bade him cease his racket.

We asked him if he had any food, but swearing by all the prophets that he had none, he resumed the (to him) pleasant task of tearing his hair and his soul in his anguish. However we were hungry and heeded him not. A few minutes sufficed to build a fire, kill the animal and enable us to partake of a succulent repast of roast-horse. The Jew, heart-broken, refusing to join us, busied himself in rescuing his scattered treasures. Once, in the failing light, he uttered an exclamation of joy and hurried to the fire, the better to examine a handful of gems he had just resurrected. As he bent to the flame, his eyes glowing with the fierce fire of avarice, I glanced into his hand and beheld the cause of his joy. Among twenty jewels of more than ordinary value, reposed a brilliant of superbest lustre. Paugh! It was disgusting. I struck his hand maladroitly and scattered the diamonds to the four winds. The result was unexpected and sanguinary. Uttering an unearthly cry of blended rage and sorrow, he sprang upon me, seemingly endowed with supernatural vigor; but I blanketed him before he could use his revolver. My comrade hastened to my aid and as the three of us struggled together, received a ball through the brain. A minute and all was over, however, and even after the Jew was dead, I struck him again and again with in¬human delight. But as I stood gloatingly over the corpse, a revulsion of feeling overcame me: I staggered, fell by the fire, and in thought journeyed over the past several weeks.

And what weeks they had been! Most truly had the vaticinations of Curtis been fulfilled! And why not? Though I had discovered it, alas! Too late, woman, the one incentive, was lost. The world had not been prone to realize it at first; but now, moribund, in the last stages of extinction, the truth was all-apparent.

At first, as I have described, interest lagged and man had begun to titillate his desires with liquor; but the spirit grew and things went from bad to worse. Labor, after the first kiss of prosperity, finding itself reduced to its previous state of hand-to-mouth existence, rebelled. There were no longer any ties of wives and little ones, so the men became insulting and riotous in their demands for more wages and less hours. The toiling capitalists, discovering that they also had no families to labor for, became indifferent and replied to the strikes of their employes with lockouts. Life nor property were no longer held sacred and a reign °f pillage and slaughter ensued. To intensify the horror of such conditions, the degraded criminal classes, emerging from their slums, holes and dens, flew at the throat of the society which had so often and so bitterly given them the lash. And even the convicts in all the penitentiaries, revolted; succeeding often in gaining their liberty. The police forces became paralyzed and finally dissolved. However, for a space, the regular army (the National Guard having long since disbanded) checked the inevitable tide of events. The people, having degenerated to all the brutishness of primitive man, drank and fought with equal ferocity. In consequence, the great centers of trade, and even all cities and towns, became stagnated, and the country no longer sent it products thither.

With starvation in the metropolises, a wild stampede followed, and the country was inundated with starving, frantic hordes, by whom, the agriculturists were despoiled and destroyed. All production ceased and anarchy was inaugurated. The complex superstructure of government was shattered, and the gregarious manifestation of the genus homo descended to the tribal unit—a unit, of course, in which the tie of family played no part. The men collected about their more valiant comrades, whose great physical and mental brutality enabled them to predominate. By these bands, the world was ravaged, plundered and destroyed. Art, science, culture, religion, tottered and fell into complete dissolution. In short, the reign of Hell on Earth had been instituted.

Borne away on the crest of a human tidal wave, I had been carried into the suburban districts, where I had since eked out a miserable and perilous existence. My sufferings and terrors had been frightful. I felt myself rapidly descending to the brute, but in my chaotic environment could do nothing to stay my fall. My treatment of the old Jew to night, clearly illustrates the completeness with which all my higher attributes had been annihilated. There lay no nuance between me and a hungry lion in an African wilderness. And yet, such was the inevitable result of the loss of womankind.

Death, in its most horrible forms, had become my constant companion. And strange were the struggles of the departing spirits! Worn out by suffering and hardship, men saw mirages—not of banquets, but of women. I remember one brute, with whom I had fought over the possession of half a measure of corn, and whom I was forced to kill. As I ate hurriedly, for fear of being discovered and dispossessed, he rose to his feet, crying aloud the name of his wife. With the death-sweat on his brow and the rattle in his throat, he thought he beheld her. He tried to grasp the phantom of his distorted vision: it evaded, retreated: he advanced. Though dying, the vision gave him strength and he pursued it across the dry stubble, to throw up his arms and fall a corpse in the center of the field.

And of late, I found a similar hallucination overcoming my reason. It came upon me at the most unexpected moments and places. It darted across my line of vision; danced on the path before me; and in my dreams, overwhelmed me with caresses or soothed my weary soul with the ineffable calm of a woman's presence. In the battle of Norfolk, where ten thousand starving men captured the last commissariat of the expiring government, it well-nigh caused my death. The victory was virtually ours, for the beseiged, in an endeavor to save themselves, had begun to cast the provisions amongst us. In the wild scramble I captured a great ham and escaped to the adjacent woods. Here I was overtaken by a marauder, who, quarreling with me over the booty, precipitated a terrible struggle. Just as I had him at my mercy and was about to give him the quietus, the apparition intervened. Dazzled, bewildered, I suspended the blow. The next I knew, I came to consciousness, grievously wounded, to discover the absence of both my antagonist and the ham. That was the first manifestation but since then they have grown more frequent. Ah! There she is now—O Laura, Laura, my lost—like a flash she is gone again. How strange it is that I should be thus haunted!—I, the "crusty bachelor," the "misogynist"! And as for Laura: before she was taken from the earth she was no more to me than any of my chums or boon companions. We liked each other—a sort of Platonic affection, I thought. But now, too late, I discover that I loved her—O Laura, my heart's desire, fill thou this aching void! Summon me, draw me to you! Release me these bonds of clay that I may escape my degradation, and with you find peace and joy! Kill—!"

Hark! Voices: the footsteps of men. A band of hungry beasts of prey are upon me. I must escape them. Seizing a leg of the butchered horse, the greatest possible treasure to me, I sprang into the bushes and fled through the night, followed by the frantic shouts of joy which heralded the discovery of my commissary.

What a dreary solitude I had ventured into! So lately seething with the hurly burly of metropolitan life, how deserted had it become! Leaving aside the mere absence of its inhabitants, the city was the shadow of its former self. Fire had so ravaged it that for blocks at a time, I walked amid nothing except chimneys, which, springing from blackened ruins, towered heavenward—ghastly indices of the wrath of God. The streets were filled with trucks, wagons, carriages, baggage—all the debris of a universal and panic-stricken flight. Everywhere, putrid corpses obstructed the way, filling the air with noisome stenches, and rendering my progress all but unendurable. Still I staggered on, in the last stages of physical and mental exhaustion. I was so weak that I had frequently to pause and rest; while my mind seemed wavering on its foundations; all things appearing to me as in a half dream. At times I mumbled and chattered aloud like a mad man: at others, I seemed to realize my condition and endeavored to rein in my fleeting senses. How or why I had wandered thither, I could not tell, for the past few days were blurred and confused to my recollection—more like a hideous nightmare than actual events.

At last I reached my home, and to my surprise found the house, untouched by fire, still standing. Upon the piazza I encountered a great dog—the first life since entering the city. How my stomach stirred at the sight! My hunter's instinct rose paramount: I had found my supper. I discovered my task to be the easier, for he had evidently narrowly escaped becoming some one else's supper. As he faced me, his hair bristling and his teeth showing, I saw that his back was broken and that he dragged his hind quarters on the ground. I drew my knife and opened the attack. But just as I closed in, my weakness asserted itself: nearly, swooning, I grasped at the pillars for support and at this moment he darted past. Making a vain effort to intercept him, I was sent sprawling down the stairs. Crying weak tears of disappointment as I saw my supper disappear around the corner, I entered the house and laboriously ascended to my room. Falling into a chair by the window, I dozed off to sleep, attended by the beatific vision of Laura.

Hush! What was that? Clasping in my arms that radiant angel, I was awakened by a furious noise at my window. The sparrows! Impossible! I looked about me: the night was gone, and there, on my window ledge, a miniature battle for the possession of a twittering female was going on. Beyond a slight feeling of bewilderment, I was my old self again. A second's thought convinced me of the whole truth. Seized by a mighty resolve, I snatched my hat, cane and gloves, and went down the stairs three at a time. In the lower hallway I ran against my landlady. Such unwonted conduct for a person as dignified as I, so astonished her that she did something she had never done before—asked me what the matter was and where I was going.

"'Going?'" I cried. "Why I'm off to propose to Laura." And I threw my arms about the good, old soul and kissed her square on the mouth.

1897