Chapter 9 - Page 2

considerable difficulties.

"It is well known in medicine that the simplest--in other words, the most natural--remedies may be the most efficacious.

"So it is in the social life. What shall we do, Society asks, with our boys? I reply. Kill off the parents.

"There can be little doubt that forty-five years is long enough for a man to live. Parents must see that. Youth is the time to have your fling.

"Let us see how this plan would revolutionise the world. It would make statesmen hurry up. At present, they are nearly fifty before you hear of them. How can we expect the country to be properly governed by men in their dotage?

"Again, take the world of letters. Why does the literary aspirant have such a struggle? Simply because the profession is over-stocked with seniors. I would like to know what Tennyson's age is, and Ruskin's, and Browning's. Every one of them is over seventy, and all writing away yet as lively as you like. It is a crying scandal.

"Things are the same in medicine, art, divinity, law--in short, in every profession and in every trade.

"Young ladies cry out that this is not a marrying age. How can it be a marrying age, with grey-headed parents everywhere? Give young men their chance, and they will marry younger than ever, if only to see their children grown up before they die.

"A word in conclusion. Looking around me, I cannot but see that most, if not all, of my hearers have passed what should plainly be the allotted span of life to man. You would have to go.

"But, gentlemen, you would do so feeling that you were setting a noble example. Younger, and--may I say?--more energetic men would fill your places and carry on your work. You would hardly be missed."

Andrew rolled up his thesis blandly, and strode into the next room to await the committee's decision. It cannot be said that he felt the slightest uneasiness.

The president followed, shutting the door behind him.

"You have just two minutes," he said.

Andrew could not understand it.

His hat was crushed on to his head, his coat flung at him; he was pushed out at a window, squeezed through a grating and tumbled into a passage.

"What is the matter?" he asked, as the president dragged him down a back street.

The president pointed to the window they had just left.

Half a dozen infuriated men were climbing from it in pursuit. Their faces, drunk with rage, awoke Andrew to a sense of his danger.

"They were drawing lots for you when I left the room," said the president.

"But what have I done?" gasped Andrew.

"They didn't like your thesis. At least, they make that their excuse."

"Excuse?"

"Yes; it was really your neck that did it."