If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

To Deborah Adams,

with thanks for the title, which she

overheard from a battered woman:

“If I’d killed him when I met him,

I’d be out of prison now.”

Pray do not, therefore, be inducted to suppose that I ever write merely to amuse, or

without an object.

– Charles Dickens

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he- bear in his pride,

He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.

But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail

For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

– RUDYARD KIPLING