The War of the WenusesLucas, E. V. (Edward Verrall)
Science
The War of the Wenuses
Lucas, E. V. (Edward Verrall)
Science fiction; Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946 -- Parodies, imitations, etc.
Judging by the names of the streets, I seemed to be at Kennington, and
it was an hour after dawn, and my collar had burst away from its stud.
But I had ceased to feel fear. My terror had fallen from me like a bath
towel. Three things struggled for the possession of my mind: the beauty
of Kennington, the whereabouts of the Wenuses, and the wengeance of my
wife. In spite of my cousin's man's beer, which I could still taste, I
was ravenously hungry; so, seeing no one about, I broke into a chemist's
shop and stayed the pangs on a cake of petroleum soap, some Parrish's
food, and a box of menthol pastilles, which I washed down with a split
ammoniated quinine and Condy. I then stole across the road, and dragging
the cushions from a deserted cab (No. 8648) into the cab shelter, I
snatched a few more hours of restless sleep.
When I woke I found myself thinking consecutively, a thing I do not
remember to have done since I killed the curate in the other book. In
the interim my mental condition had been chaotic, asymptotic. But during
slumber my brain, incredible as it may seem, stimulated and clarified by
the condiments of which I had partaken, had resumed its normal activity.
I determined to go home.
Resolving at any cost to reach Campden Hill Gardens by a sufficiently
circuitous route, I traversed Kennington Park Road, Newington Butts,
Newington Causeway, Blackman Street, and the Borough High Street, to
London Bridge. Crossing the bridge, I met a newspaper boy with a bundle
of papers, still wet from the press. They were halfpenny copies of the
_Star_, but he charged me a penny for mine. The imposition still
rankles.
From it I learned that a huge cordon of police, which had been drawn
round the Crinoline, had been mashed beyond recognition, and two
regiments of Life Guards razed to the ground, by the devastating Glance
of the Wenuses. I passed along King William Street and Prince's Street
to Moorgate Street. Here I met another newspaper boy, carrying the _Pall
Mall Gazette_. I handed him a threepenny bit; but though I waited for
twenty minutes, he offered me no change. This will give some idea of the
excitement then beginning to prevail. The _Pall Mall_ had an article on
the situation, which I read as I climbed the City Road to Islington. It
stated that Mrs. Pozzuoli, my wife, had constituted herself
Commander-in-Chief, and was busy marshalling her forces. I was relieved
by the news, for it suggested that my wife was fully occupied. Already a
good bulk of nursemaids and cooks, enraged at the destruction of the
Scotland Yard and Knightsbridge heroes by the Wenuses' Mash-Glance, had
joined her flag. It was, said the _Pall Mall,_ high time that such an
attack was undertaken, and since women had been proved to be immune to
the Mash-Glance, it was clearly their business to undertake it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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