'That stout gentleman, going from one to another, and making himself affable with everybody, who looks like a good-natured person, and whose unctuous manners remind one of a clergyman, is the husband of Madame Killer. He is an accomplished scholar, and has obtained his diploma from one of our best medical colleges. He might have obtained a competency by honest practice. But when Madame Killer, already enriched through her nefarious business, hinted that she was disposed to marry him, Bungling eagerly took the hint, and espoused this abortionist. 'Of course, after the marriage, Madame Killer retained her own name, as it was already a notorious one. Love, you may be sure, had nothing to do with this matrimonial transaction. Madame Killer married Bungling because his science might be of some service in many delicate circumstances--in about the same way a merchant takes in a partner when he has too much to do. The couple have been uniformly prosperous since they married, about ten years ago. True, they had two or three unpleasant misunderstandings with the police, on account of a few poor creatures dying of ill-treatment at their hands; but they came out of all of them triumphantly.' 'Must I infer from this that the laws of America do not punish infanticide?' said I, 'that fearful crime of getting rid of children before or after their natural birth. Even the unfortunate who stakes her life to conceal the consequences of a fault, is amenable to law; she is punished for child-murder, as well as her accomplice, in every civilized country.' 'By and by,' answered Asmodeus, 'I will explain that subject to you. I will content myself, for the present, by saying that the laws of America are no less severe than those of Europe, as regards the crimes of infanticide and abortion. But in such cases, as well as in many others, the law often remains a dead letter.' I longed to depart from the house. I fancied, after Asmodeus's frightful revelations, the very air we breathed was impregnated with deadly miasma. Dancing had been interrupted for awhile; and in a hall, connected with a conservatory, filled with rare and odoriferous plants, a concert was beginning. Every note from a sonorous piano sounded in my ear like the wailing of one of those poor little beings the Amphitryons had brought to an untimely death. And then, of what character were those women, crowding the rooms, in spite of the crumpling of their splendid dresses? Who were those men, who had either accompanied or were courting them?