Part 5 (1/2)
Penelope and I fled downstairs to escape detection.
”She was converted all the time; I told you she would be,” I remarked on the doorstep.
”Now for the immortal grudge!” sighed Penelope.
VI
At a Street Corner
”People of London!” faltered the lady who had just stepped upon the sugar-box at the edge of the pavement.
The people of London, who happened just then to be a very little girl carrying a very large baby, stared in some astonishment. Another lady, who had been distributing handbills farther along the street, came back and prompted the speaker encouragingly.
”Go on; that's splendid!” she said with friendly warmth.
The woman on the sugar-box, who had never stood on a sugar-box before, smiled wanly. ”Why do they never have earthquakes except in countries where people don't want them?” she sighed. Her friend being engaged at the moment in pressing a handbill upon the little girl, who obligingly gripped the baby with one hand and her chin in order to take it, there came no response to the appeal of the orator in the gutter; and she pulled herself together and made a fresh start.
”People of London!” she repeated amiably. ”We have come here to tell you about 'Votes for----'”
”Why, it's these 'ere Suffra_gites_!” suddenly yelled the people of London, s.h.i.+fting the baby on to the other arm; and the debutante on the sugar-box broke down and laughed deprecatingly.
”I really must wait for some more people,” she protested.
”You needn't,” said her more experienced companion. ”They always come along fast enough as soon as they see some one like you standing on a sugar-box.”
”That doesn't surprise me,” remarked the inexperienced one, thinking regretfully of a happy past in which the chief aim of a well-ordered life had been to avoid doing anything that would attract attention.
”Here they come,” continued the lady with the handbills. ”Just keep them going while I get rid of these, there's a dear! It doesn't matter what you say,” she added consolingly, as she went towards two approaching women with outstretched hand and an ingratiating smile.
”_Ah! ce sont les suffragettes!_” exclaimed one of these unexpectedly.
”_Nous sommes des suffragistes francaises, nous aussi! Vive le feminisme!_”
”Oh, how perfectly delightful!” said the English suffragist, beaming on them. ”Do stop and listen. _Nous allons avoir un_--oh, bother! What is 'meeting'?--_un rendez-vous, mesdames!_”
”_Tiens!_” gasped the French suffragists, as well they might.
At this moment the speaker, her mind a blank concerning all the carefully prepared sentences she had been learning by heart for days, could be heard announcing that she would now call upon the other lady to address the meeting; and the crowd, increasing every minute, cheered inconsequently.
”Well, there ain't much of her, but give 'er a chaunce!” remarked a wit, as the second speaker mounted the sugar-box.
A small boy hitched up his trousers and moved off. ”I shall turn into a woman if I stay here,” he observed.
”No such luck for you, my boy!” came the quick retort from the rickety platform, and the impressionable crowd grinned with appreciation.
The speaker pounced upon her opportunity and began to sketch the history of Reform. She used long words purposely, so they made an instant show of listening, it being out of the question, of course, to allow that any woman, least of all a Suffragette, could talk over their heads. The astonis.h.i.+ng statement that women in the past had enjoyed a certain measure of political power, was, however, too much for one youth.
”Where did you git that from?” he shouted.