“My dear Mr. Carford,” said Mr. Lister looking at me sympathetically, “I fear you have only just begun to fathom the depth of the effect of this desolating and singular Strike, if you suppose that men’s clubs could possibly exist after woman had forsaken man as she has now done.” “Clubs not exist!” I replied in astonishment. “I should suppose that they would be the only solace in this intolerable gloom.” “I know,” said Mr. Lister, “that clubs drew men from their homes before the Strike began, and that they were therefore the source of some domestic trouble from woman’s natural jealousy of them. But this you must bear in mind was when the man who went to his club possessed a home made radiant by a patient, beautiful, subjugated woman who awaited his lordly pleasure. Man took the ownership of woman as a matter of course, a desirable and comforting thing to be sure, but still something that was always to be at his beck and call, and therefore a thing for which he was not called upon to make any sacrifice. But when all women, calling each other sisters, withdrew themselves utterly from men with the awful completeness which you now see, there was a fearful reaction. For days men shunned each other as if they were wild beasts, and the thought of assembling together for anything like social interchange, was simply intolerable. The club houses closed immediately.” “But there are the theatres, are there not?” “Unfortunately, no,” said Mr. Lister. “The theatres made a desperate effort to continue for a time, and even sought to carry on their dramas by having their male actors personate women. But all men fled from this hollow deceit as if it were a ghastly mockery, and the actors were soon stalking before empty seats. The theatres, too, closed.” “But the churches,” I said, with a groan; “surely the churches are accessible?”