ABSTRACT
The daily paper is carefully kept out of my way, and no hint of the Jack the Ripper murders reaches me at home. But the boys next door
are well advised of them . . . [and] . . . have their story ready. “There’s a man in a leather apron coming soon, to kill all the little
girls in Tunbridge Wells. It’s in the paper.” He stands before me, vividly enough, that man with the leather
apron and the uplifted, blood-stained knife. I have not forgotten the Bible story of King Herod’s order to kill all the babies of Bethlehem. I scarcely ask myself if the boys are lying. It was true “in the days of Herod the king”—and what happened once can happen again. I delight the boys by running indoors screaming, begging Papa to take me away at once from Tunbridge Wells; nor is my confidence fully restored when Papa and Mamma both insist that the story is silly nonsense, made up to frighten me . . . Mamma and Papa, though
generally right, can be mistaken. . . .
