R. W. C. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] "Facta canam; sed erunt qui me finxisse loquantur."--OVID. [Illustration] [Illustration] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE "She looked at him almost insolently . . . 'Presently,' she said" _Frontispiece_ "'To begin,' he said, 'I came here fishing'" 46 "Only one fleet-footed young girl remained at his heels" 184 "'Pray, observe my unmatched eyes'" 246 [Illustration] I THE year had been, as everybody knows, a momentous and sinister year for the masculine sex; marriages and births in the United States alone had fallen off nearly eighty per cent.; the establishment of Suffragette Unions in every city, town, and village of the country, their obedience to the dictation of the Central National Female Franchise Federation; the financial distress of the florists, caterers, milliners and modistes incident to the almost total suspension of social functions throughout the great cities of the land, threatened eventually to paralyse the nation's business. Clergymen were in a pitiable condition for lack of fees and teas; the marriage license bureau was open only Mondays and Saturdays; the social columns of the newspapers were abolished. All over the Union young men were finding time hanging heavy on their hands after business hours because there was little to do now that every town had its Franchise Clubs magnificently fitted with every requisite that a rapidly advancing sex could possibly demand. The pressure upon the men of the Republic was becoming tremendous; but, as everybody knows, they held out with a courage worthy, perhaps, of a better cause, and women were still denied the franchise in the face of impending national disaster. But the Central Federation of Amalgamated Females was to deliver a more deadly blow at man than any yet attempted, a blow that for cruelty and audacity remains unparalleled in the annals of that restless sex. As everybody now knows, this terrible policy was to be inaugurated in secret; a trial was to be made of the idea in New York State; neither the state nor federal governments had the faintest suspicion of what impended; not a single newspaper had any inkling. Even Augustus Melnor, owner and editor of that greatest of New York daily newspapers, the _Morning Star_, continued to pay overwhelming attention to his personal appearance, confident that the great feminine revolt was on its last shapely legs, and that once more womankind would be kind to any kind of mankind, and flirt and frivol and marry, and provide progeny, and rock the cradle as in the good old days of yore. So it happened one raw, windy day in May, Mr. Melnor entered his private office in the huge _Morning Star_ building, in an unusually cheerful frame of mind and sent for the city editor, Mr. Trinkle.