I sat down well pleased at the adroitness of my answer, feeling that woman-like they could not let my taunt stand on the record, and that to remove me would be to approve me. But I misjudged the infinite subtlety of the feminine mind. The room was in an uproar and the hubbub in the square was deafening. In the midst of the clamor Doctrina, having obtained silence, rose and pointing her finger at me cried angrily: “Well, I will bring a charge that cannot be denied. I demand this man’s removal for having corrupted the morals of youth by the introduction of a shameful and detestable costume, and I call on all to witness,” she added, tempestuously pointing to the shorts and polo shirt in which I was clothed, “that he himself stands before us in this nude and unmanly exposure.” “Rubbish!” I shouted at the top of my voice, losing my temper at the last. “Ridiculous! Condemn me honestly or not at all. Listen, all! I demand to be heard!” “And I move now that all discussion end,” continued Doctrina, “and that a vote be taken.” Everyone was standing up gesticulating wildly. Dianne clung to my side, but I pushed past her. “I will be heard!” I shouted furiously, sprang forward, tripped and went down with a crash. * * * * * When I came to consciousness, Manfreda was standing before me, and Doctrina shaking my arm. “Wake up, John, wake up,” said the voice of my wife. “You are having a dreadful nightmare.” I sat up, staring wildly. The face of Doctrina was the face of Emelia, and the terrible calm of Manfreda was on the face of my mother-in-law. “Don’t touch me,” I cried. “Traitors, spies! Never again will I listen to you! Between us it is war--open war to the end!” And then and there I fled from my home. * * * * * [Note by Theodosia Sitwell. Assistant physician in the Clarendon County Hospital for the Insane.] _John Bogardus was confined in this hospital for over eight months during which time he wrote the preceding curious manuscript. Despite some hesitation we have decided on its publication in the interest of medical science, revealing as it does how strange and casual suggestions may lead to the most exaggerated hallucinations. During the whole of his confinement, John Bogardus, with the exception of a fixed feminaphobia and an obsession that his duty lay in warning his sex of the danger of feminine progress, was an exemplary and tractable patient. His tragic death could not have been foreseen. A week after the completion of his manuscript, he disappeared and after forty-eight hours’ search, his frozen body was recovered in the large refrigerator of the asylum, where he had taken refuge under the evident delusion that it was a Frigidrome._ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been left unchanged.