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Title: Women for votes

Author: Elizabeth Hughes

Release date: January 9, 2023 [eBook #69755]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1912

Credits: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN FOR VOTES ***





                          WOMEN FOR VOTES




                          Women for Votes

                                By
                         Elizabeth Hughes

                [Illustration: Publisher colophon]

                             New York
                      E. P. Dutton & Company
                               1912




                          COPYRIGHT, 1912
                                BY
                      E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY


                 The Knickerbocker Press, New York




  A FARCE IN THREE ACTS


    _Persons of the Play_:

  GEORGE TILSBURY.

  JOSEPHINE TILSBURY, _his wife_.

  MILDRED TILSBURY, _his daughter by a former marriage_.

  IMOGENE BROWN,                     }
  EDWARD MELVIN,                     } _Friends of the Tilsburys_.
  HORACE VAN TOUSEL,                 }
  THEODORE BECKER,                   }

  MARY HENRIETTA THOM, _a leader of the Women Suffragists_.

  SOPHIE SLAVINSKY, _a minor partisan_.

  KATY, _the parlormaid at the Tilsburys’_.

  HELMA, _the cook at the Tilsburys’_.

  COCHON, _Mrs. Brown’s pet pig with his ears trimmed and wearing
      an elaborate blanket_.

Time: the present. The action of the play takes place in the City
of New York during a week in November.




                          WOMEN FOR VOTES




                               ACT I


    _The drawing-room at the Tilsburys’ house in the City of
    New York, tastefully arranged, with a door at each end
    and a sofa against the wall, over which hangs a beautiful
    full-length portrait of the first Mrs. Tilsbury. When the
    curtain rises_, MRS. BROWN _is seen seated in an easy
    chair, turning over the pages of a magazine, while_ COCHON
    _is asleep on the floor beside her. Enter_ MRS. TILSBURY
    _with her hat on, a contrast to_ MRS. BROWN _who is in
    dinner dress_.

MRS. BROWN. (_Looking up as_ MRS. TILSBURY _enters_.) Well, was the
meeting a success?

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, a huge success. We were told of all sorts of
horrors. Only fancy, Imogene, until 1857—or was it 1858? well,
it doesn’t matter which—women were not allowed to testify on the
witness stand about their husbands’ pedigrees.

MRS. BROWN. Why did they want to testify about their husbands’
pedigrees? If it were about their husbands’ descendants now, a
second family _sub rosa_, there might be something in it. They
might testify about their pets’ pedigrees might they not? I would
be permitted to tell all about your pedigree on a horrid old
witness stand, wouldn’t I little tootsie-wootsie-tootsie? (_Takes
up pig and caresses it._)

MRS. TILSBURY. I don’t know, I am sure, why they should want to.
The only time I ever took any interest in my husband’s pedigree was
when I wanted to join the Society of Colonial Caudlers, and then I
was told that my husband’s ancestors did not count, but that I must
stand on my own.

MRS. BROWN. Stand on your own! Could you find their graves?

MRS. TILSBURY. No, that was the trouble. I haven’t any ancestors.
I wouldn’t have wanted to use my husband’s if I had had any of my
own, but it wasn’t any use.

MRS. BROWN. Well, if that is all they said at the meeting I think I
passed a more profitable afternoon. See this purse that I won as a
prize at the Bridge party.

MRS. TILSBURY. O, what a beauty! I do wish I could have gone. It is
just what I want. Generally, Bridge prizes are some old thing that
go from house to house as rapidly as a servant girl. Those tiresome
suffrage meetings take up all my time. I never have a chance to do
anything I like.

MRS. BROWN. Why do you go to them? I never do. I don’t want to
vote, there are so many other things that are more amusing.

MRS. TILSBURY. I go with Mildred, she is so interested in Woman’s
Suffrage.

MRS. BROWN. Well, you are a good—I don’t even like to say the word.
It would be such a misnomer in your case.

MRS. TILSBURY. Stepmother, you mean. Oh, you needn’t mind saying
it. I would be constantly reminded of it by that (_looks up at
portrait over sofa_) even if it were not for other things.

MRS. BROWN. Yes, that too. It is so magnanimous of you to hang it
there, to give such prominence to the first Mrs. Tilsbury.

MRS. TILSBURY. I suppose it is more respectable to succeed a wife
who is dead than one who is divorced.

MRS. BROWN. Oh, by all means. Dead women tell no lies, nor the
truth either, and sometimes divorcées delight in telling tales
about their first husbands’ second wives. But, tell me, why do you
take the trouble to go to all these tiresome meetings when you
might be enjoying yourself? Can’t Mildred go alone or with some
friend?

MRS. TILSBURY. Well, I suppose it is no harder way of making
a living than any other. I was an artist before I married Mr.
Tilsbury. My father lost all his money in the panic of 1893 and I
had to do something to help mother.

MRS. BROWN. Making a living? You don’t mean to tell me that the
Women Suffragists are forced to pay their audiences to make them
come to the meetings?

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, no! Not that of course; but I suppose I might as
well make a clean breast of it, particularly as I want you to help
me!

MRS. BROWN. Yes, do. I should love to help you. You have always
been so kind to me. What do you want me to do?

MRS. TILSBURY. It’s this way, you see. Mildred’s mother had all
the money. George never had a cent of his own and he always spent
whatever he could lay his hands on, so when Mrs. Tilsbury died
she left a will bequeathing everything to Mildred except that
old portrait there, which she gave to George as a token of her
affection, and to show that she did not bear him any ill-will.
The property is to belong to Mildred absolutely when she is
twenty-five, or when she marries, if she should marry younger.
Until either of these events happen, the estate is to be held in
trust. The trustee appointed by Mrs. Tilsbury died a few days after
she did, and George as Mildred’s father and nearest friend was made
trustee. See?

MRS. BROWN. Yes. How clever you are. You talk just like a lawyer.

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, my dear! I have heard it talked over so often
that I have learned it by heart, but when I repeat those phrases, I
feel just as if I had tight boots on. I am so glad to take them off
and talk naturally again.

MRS. BROWN. I don’t see what all this has to do with Woman’s
Suffrage. Did Mrs. Tilsbury make it a condition in her will that
Mildred should be brought up to support “votes for women”?

MRS. TILSBURY. No, but when George first proposed to me, he told me
all about the will, and said that it would be my duty if I married
him to keep Mildred from marrying. He said that if she could be
made to take an interest in other things and not marry until she
was twenty-five, she would not be likely to marry at all, but would
probably continue to live with us and leave the money in his hands;
that it ran in the family to marry early or not at all, that two
of her aunts had eloped when in their teens, and that the others
were all old maids. Sometimes I think that George only married me
so as to have some one to look after Mildred. A paid chaperone
would not have the same interest at stake. She would only have her
salary and Mildred might pension her if she married, but George and
I are utterly dependent on that young girl.

MRS. BROWN. Oh, don’t say that. Everybody knows how much George was
in love with you. Why, he was positively foolish. It was to keep
Mildred from marrying, then, that you influenced her to take part
in the cause of Woman’s Suffrage?

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, George and I talked it over and we decided that
that would be the most absorbing interest for her. You see the
speakers tell such awful stories about men, and the inequality of
men and women before the law, and the dreadful laws against married
women, that no self-respecting girl who heard them would want to
talk to a man hardly, much less dare to marry one.

MRS. BROWN. Mildred made a speech this afternoon didn’t she?

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, her first one, and she has been so busy and
interested in writing it that she hasn’t given a thought to the
other sex except to denounce their vices.

MRS. BROWN. You have just returned from the meeting now. What a
long one it must have been.

MRS. TILSBURY. Endless; and then the ladies insisted upon Mildred’s
waiting afterwards for congratulations and a cup of tea.

MRS. BROWN. You want me to help you, you say, but really, I have
no time to go to these meetings. My time is so taken up. There is
to-day for example. This morning I had my Auction Bridge class from
nine until eleven, and that is most exhausting. The teacher keeps
saying “ladies concentrate” just when I am concentrating on what
stunning hands he has and so beautifully manicured.

MRS. TILSBURY. My dear, I knew a woman once—you would know her,
too, if I told you her name—who fell so in love with an actor that
she studied manicuring, found out where he went to be manicured,
and got a job there just to hold his hand an hour every two or
three days!

MRS. BROWN. Some women are so silly! What was I saying? Oh, yes,
after the Bridge class, I went to the Chansons de Chiffons, and
I wish you could have seen Mme. Duffoird who sang. Those opera
singers never know how to dress, that is why they always want to be
Brunhildas and Carmens. Why, in all the times I have gone to the
opera, I have never obtained a fresh idea!

MRS. TILSBURY. I saw rather a pretty gown in _Sappho_ once.
Cavalieri wore it. That’s a modern opera.

MRS. BROWN. Oh, I saw that. It looked as if it were made in
Germany. Well, as I was saying, from the concert, I went to a
luncheon, then to the Bridge party, and now I am here for dinner.
I have not even had the time to give Cochon the air. Mother
didn’t even have time to take her little pet walking, did she
tootsie-wootsie-tootsie? That’s why I brought him here to-night.
Your rooms are bigger than mine and he has more space to run around
in.

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, I didn’t intend to ask you to go to meetings.
I have been obliged to give up so much to go to them myself that
I would not ask it of any one else. It has been very hard. I was
asked to be a manager in the “Unseen Blushers” and I had to refuse
because I hadn’t the time.

MRS. BROWN. “The Unseen Blushers”? Oh, that’s the new artistic,
musical, and literary society, isn’t it?—but why do they call it by
such an odd name? I thought blushes were made to be seen. They are
so becoming. I have always wondered that no one has ever invented a
rouge that could be turned off and on like an electric light before
and after a kiss. There are so many clever inventions nowadays.

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, not that kind of a blush. “Full many a flower is
born to blush unseen,” you know. It means to blossom I think. This
society is for the discovery of hidden genius. The old theory was
that men and women of genius rose to the top as naturally as cream
rises and that they produced their works of art as unconcernedly as
a hen hatches her eggs, but now the psychologists and physicists
believe in aiding nature. They find that they can get more cream by
means of a separator, that it is all through the milk and needs to
be forced out, and that incubators can hatch eggs better than hens.
So this society has been formed to encourage artistic, musical, and
literary talent that is hard to discover and is unable to find its
way to the surface. You understand!

MRS. BROWN. I don’t! It is all Greek to me, but you are so clever,
Josephine. Tell me about your art.

MRS. TILSBURY. I have been forced to give it all up because of
Mildred, and my last picture was such a success too. It received
the third prize in the impressionist class. It was a painting of a
street cleaner—a White Wing. I got the idea from a cup of chocolate
I upset. The whipped cream made almost all the figure, the white
uniform, you know, and then a few drops of chocolate looked like
the bronzed face of a swarthy Italian. I just copied the spill
exactly. Near by the thick white paint looked precisely like the
whipped cream, but if you stood six yards away every one said it
looked just like a street sweeper bending over with his broom to
sweep up the dust.

MRS. BROWN. How beautiful, and what an original idea!

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, that is what everybody said. Nowadays, when
there is so much interest taken in the Traffic Squad of police
and the firemen, the men who save lives in a conspicuous and
sensational manner, and every one wants to reward them and paint
them and sculpture them and their horses, no one remembers the
humble life-savers who protect us from deadly diseases and
pestilences by keeping the streets clean. One woman wrote a poem
about my picture, beginning, “Germ gatherer grovelling in the
gritty gravel.” It was charming. It is published in the _Unseen
Blushers Review_. I will send you a copy.

MRS. BROWN. Please do. I should love to have it and a photograph of
your painting too.

MRS. TILSBURY. I will remember. Yes, my whole career was just
beginning when I had to give it all up to follow Mildred around to
Woman’s Suffrage meetings only because there is more money in it.
What does the artistic woman want of a vote? Art has always been
open to both sexes, and the Unseen Blushers include both men and
women.

MRS. BROWN. It is very hard on you when you have so much talent to
leave it all unused, but since you don’t want me to go to meetings,
what assistance can I be to you?

MRS. TILSBURY. I know you were very unhappy in your married life,
and I want you to tell Mildred all about it.

MRS. BROWN. (_Indignantly._) Really, Josephine, there are some
things that one doesn’t talk about to a child.

MRS. TILSBURY. Mildred is eighteen, and the men are after her
already. You have no idea what men will do to get a little money.

MRS. BROWN. I cannot lay bare the secrets of my married life.
Besides, I don’t know but I might marry again. My experience was in
some ways unfortunate to be sure, but one swallow doesn’t make a
summer, nor one man matrimony.

MRS. TILSBURY. One man doesn’t make matrimony! To hear you,
Imogene, one would think you were—not a Mormon but the other thing;
what is it they call it?—oh, yes, I remember, a polyanthus.

MRS. BROWN. I did not mean more than one husband at a time. I meant
that if a woman is unfortunate in her first choice and is left a
widow, she might from her increased experience be able to select a
second husband better. It is very lonesome to be a widow. It is
all very well in the daytime when the men are down-town but the
evenings are so long. There are so many jokes about widows that a
man is afraid to be left alone with one. If I should talk a lot
against marriage and then suddenly marry again, my inconsistency
would do more harm to your cause than if I should keep silence in
the first place.

MRS. TILSBURY. I don’t know about that. I used to have a beau when
I was a girl who always kept repeating, “Inconsistency, thy name is
woman.” He said it so often that I have never been able to forget
it since.

MRS. BROWN. How is any one to know I want to marry again if I talk
against matrimony? The men will all fly from me. No, Josephine, I
must say how lonely I am and how nice it is to have a man come home
at five o’clock and to make him comfy beside the fire, and how I
love the odor of a cigar, and how strong men are beside us weak
women, and that I wish I had some one to help me with my business
which I find so difficult to understand. No, I can’t run down men
to Mildred like a peevish old maid or a disappointed wife even to
help you.

MRS. TILSBURY. But every one knows how jealous your husband was of
you.

MRS. BROWN. Well, I worked awfully hard to make him so. I don’t
think I will stay for dinner, Josephine, after all. You are too
personal to-day. (_Rises to go._)

MRS. TILSBURY. Don’t be peeved, Imogene; stay, and talk about
whatever you choose. If you would only help me it would be to your
advantage if you really are thinking about marrying again. You
would meet ever so many men here. They are indeed like flies about
a honey pot.

MRS. BROWN. Fortune hunters! I am not looking for that kind. I need
to find a snug little fortune myself. You know Mr. Brown left me
his money only on condition that I did not marry again.

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, I know, dear. He was always very jealous. You
should tell Mildred about that will.

MRS. BROWN. And be rewarded by being shown off to her fortune
hunters.

MRS. TILSBURY. Some of them have money.

MRS. BROWN. Yes, and want more to add to it. I know that sort. A
man without a cent might marry a poor girl and work for her, but a
man with a little money wants to gather in a little more when he
marries, just like an old china collector.

MRS. TILSBURY. There are exceptions.

MRS. BROWN. The men who want to control their wives through their
purse. Don’t think the exception improves the rule, Josephine.

MRS. TILSBURY. You are almost as bitter against men as the
suffragists.

MRS. BROWN. Oh, no. I like men, only I know the faults of some of
them. Who is coming here to-night?

MRS. TILSBURY. A Mr. Becker and a Mr. Van Tousel. They have both
been rushing Mildred for the last three weeks, but fortunately she
has been so interested in her speech that she has hardly noticed
them.

MRS. BROWN. Why did you ask them to dinner?

MRS. TILSBURY. Mr. Van Tousel fairly asked himself. His attentions
to Mildred have been so costly that I could not refuse him when
he suggested coming after the meeting this afternoon, and then I
invited Mr. Becker so that we might play Bridge and protect Mildred
from a tête-à-tête.

MRS. BROWN. What are they like?

MRS. TILSBURY. Mr. Becker is a lawyer, and Mr. Van Tousel is old
family.

MRS. BROWN. Does he find it lucrative?

MRS. TILSBURY. Find what lucrative?

MRS. BROWN. Being old family?

MRS. TILSBURY. Well, it furnishes him with conversation. That is
something in these days.

MRS. BROWN. He must be an awful bore. What about Mr. Becker?

MRS. TILSBURY. I told you he is a lawyer.

MRS. BROWN. That is not very descriptive.

MRS. TILSBURY. It is in his case. George says that points of
law are sticking out all over him so that he is as prickly as a
hedgehog.

MRS. BROWN. Where does he come from?

MRS. TILSBURY. From up state somewhere. He is a rising man.

MRS. BROWN. I have met so many rising men but they never seem to
arrive. They remind me of an elevator that gets stuck between
floors.

MRS. TILSBURY. Without any passengers on board, I hope.

MRS. BROWN. Oh, they usually are weighted down with a family.

MRS. TILSBURY. Mr. Becker is a bachelor and George says he is
making a very good income.

MRS. BROWN. Well, that is satisfactory. There is the door-bell now.

MRS. TILSBURY. So you see, Imogene, both of these men are
exceptions to your remarks.

KATY. (_Announcing._) Mr. Van Tousel!

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, Mr. Van Tousel! I was just thinking of you and
saying to Mrs. Brown that there are some men who are exceptions to
the common run of selfish, self-centred New York men and that you
were one of these exceptions. Mr. Van Tousel is so broad-minded. He
believes in “the cause.”

MRS. BROWN. Indeed!

MR. VAN TOUSEL. I think it is a disgrace, madam, to ask women to
pay taxes, to contribute their share to the maintenance of the
government, and then to refuse them a single vote in the management
of that same government.

MRS. TILSBURY. Isn’t he generous!

MRS. BROWN. (_In a low voice._) People generally are with what
isn’t their own.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. How is Miss Mildred? I was at the meeting this
afternoon and saw her sitting on the platform. What a noble sight
it is to see a beautiful young girl, far removed from the struggle
for existence, take up the cause of her less fortunate sisters.

MRS. BROWN. I thought from what you just said that you believed
only taxpayers ought to vote. Of course, you know Mildred pays
large taxes.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Oh, Mrs. Brown, how could you so misunderstand me!
I believe in the franchise for all women.

MRS. TILSBURY. Here is Mildred now. She went to change her gown for
dinner, but we were so late in returning from the meeting that Mrs.
Brown was already here, and so I did not take the time to change
mine. I hope you will both excuse me.

                                               (_Mildred enters._)

MRS. BROWN. You look charming, Josephine, as you always do. How do
you do, Mildred?

MILDRED. How do you do, Mrs. Brown. How do you do, Mr. Van Tousel?
(_Shakes hands with both, and then turns towards the pig._) How is
Cochon?

MRS. BROWN. He has been alone all day, poor little beastie. That is
why I brought him here to-night.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Ah, Mrs. Brown, what a dear little dog. What breed
is he, may I ask?

MRS. BROWN. Pig, Mr. Van Tousel, common pig.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Do you mean to say he is only a pig?

MRS. BROWN. Yes, it is the fashion to be original at present, you
know, and to be original in dogs nowadays is so expensive. One has
to get an animal from the Summer Palace of the Empress of China or
the kennels of some royal prince, so I thought I would be original
in making a pet of a pig. I am the first woman in New York to start
the idea. The reporters from all the newspapers would be after me
for an interview if it were generally known, but I am obliged to
keep it a secret because there is an old law against keeping pigs
in New York City. They used to be employed as scavengers, then they
became so numerous that this law was passed. I can’t take Cochon
out in the daytime, except in a motor car, for fear I shall be
arrested, although he looks exactly like a little dog with his
blanket on, except for his snout.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, I thought of course he was a dog.

MRS. BROWN. The police are so disagreeable that one has to be very
careful. Only the other day when I was late for a Bridge party,
and I had offered the chauffeur of the taxicab double fare to get
me there in time, a perfectly horrid officer arrested him and
insisted upon taking off both the driver and the cab to the station
house, although I explained everything to him and that it was most
important for me to arrive in time because it was a club party and
every table was to play against the room for a prize in money. All
he said was, “Madam, you can walk.”

MRS. TILSBURY. That was because women have no vote, no influence.
If you had been a man, he would not have dared to make you late for
an important engagement.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Quite true.

MILDRED. I don’t believe the policeman saw whether the chauffeur
had a man or a woman passenger when he arrested him, Mrs. Brown,
but of course as a rule a vote does give a man the advantage.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. How wonderfully you reason, Miss Mildred!

KATY. (_Announcing._) Miss Slavinsky!

                                                (_Sophie enters._)

MILDRED. How do you do, Sophie.

SOPHIE. Oh, Mildred, I am afraid that I have come at a very bad
time, just when you have all these grand folks here, but I ran in
right after supper, because I do not like to be out late. The cops
pinch women down our way, you know, when they are out alone too
late (_looks up at_ MR. VAN TOUSEL), and I had to see you
to-night because Mrs. Thom asked me to tell you that you have been
chosen out of ever so many, as the most popular girl, to carry the
banners of our Society in the Parade to-morrow.

MILDRED. That was very kind of the ladies. Where is the banner?

SOPHIE. I could not bring it with me. It is very heavy and it
would make me look strange to carry it in the streets. The bad
little boys would say, “Where did you get the barber’s pole, Miss?”
I thought you would send for it to the Society’s rooms in your
beautiful automobile.

MILDRED. Yes, certainly. I’ll send the first thing in the morning.
Let me introduce you to my stepmother, Mrs. Tilsbury, and this
is Mrs. Brown and Mr. Van Tousel. We are all interested in the
enfranchisement of women. You are among friends.

SOPHIE. A gentleman who cares for our cause! Oh, that is great, as
you Americans say. If we had many more like him, we would be voting
just like the men. I am proud to shake your hand, Mr. Van Tousel.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Thank you, Miss Slavinsky. Any friend of Miss
Tilsbury is a friend of mine.

SOPHIE. She is indeed a wonder. To leave this beautiful home and
her grand friends just to help us poor working girls to get our
rights!

MRS. BROWN. What work do you do, Miss Slavinsky?

SOPHIE. I am an usheress.

MRS. BROWN. A what?

SOPHIE. An usheress, a lady usher at the theatre. And I have to
work, oh, so hard, every night and matinées on Wednesdays and
Saturdays.

MRS. BROWN. It must be very nice to see all the plays without
paying anything.

SOPHIE. One can’t see much when one has to show stupid men and
women to their seats all through the first act. People should not
be allowed to come in after the curtain goes up. Then, too, we
have the same play for so long. A run they call it. It is more
like a walk, it is so slow. Now at the opera, they change every
night, but the men have it all their own way there. They won’t have
an usheress, but we will stop that monopoly soon. We have just
organized a union, and we shall demand equal pay as the men. Now
they try to put us off on half pay because we are women.

MILDRED. I think there is a prejudice against women ushers in New
York. I don’t see why, they have them at all the theatres in London.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. And very neat and pretty they look in their white
caps and aprons.

SOPHIE. There is certainly a sex discrimination! Why, a man the
other night said to me, “You women are all alike. You never get a
thing straight.” Just because I was looking so hard at a woman’s
bird of paradise head-dress that I gave her the man’s seat in
the third row, and when he came in after, I gave him the lady’s
seat in the thirteenth. He threatened to complain of me to the
box-office—as if men ushers never made mistakes!

MILDRED. How hateful of him!

SOPHIE. Well, it will be all different now that we have organized.
We are going to strike.

ALL. What!

SOPHIE. Yes, and then how we will laugh when we see the audience
trying to find their own seats in the dark, and when they are all
seated, we are going to the cloak-room to mix up their checks.

MILDRED. Why, that is militant, like the English suffragettes. You
wouldn’t do that, Sophie.

SOPHIE. Yes, we will too, and the management will have to pay
damages to the people who lose their things. We will have great
times with the stingy old managers. You’ll see.

MRS. BROWN. Let me know the date, Miss Slavinsky, and I will wear
my old coat that I want to get rid of and see if I can pull a sable
coat out of the grab-bag.

KATY. (_Announcing._) Mr. Becker.

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, Mr. Becker, how kind of you to come to-night to
our quiet little dinner when you have so many engagements. Let me
introduce Mrs. Brown. You already know Mildred and Mr. Van Tousel,
and this is Miss Slavinsky.

MR. BECKER. How do you do, Mrs. Brown. How do you do, Miss
Slavinsky.

SOPHIE. And is this another great big glorious man who wants to
help us poor weak little women to get our rights? No, it is that
same rude man who spoke so peevish to me at the theatre, the other
night. Go away, I have no use for you.

MR. BECKER. I don’t recall the circumstances. I think you have
made a mistake, Miss Slavinsky. I do not think we have ever met
before.

SOPHIE. Oh yes we have.

MILDRED. Miss Slavinsky is an usheress at a theatre, Mr. Becker,
and she made a mistake in showing you to your seat the other
evening that annoyed you.

MR. BECKER. I don’t remember it, Miss Tilsbury.

SOPHIE. Yes, you were at the theatre, don’t you remember, Mr.
Becker, last Monday, with a lady all alone. Not a lady like these
ladies, but another kind of a lady with a big red feather and a big
red cheek.

MR. BECKER. I still think you are mistaken, Miss Slavinsky. I have
not been to the theatre in a month. You women are apt to jump to
conclusions and then stick to them.

SOPHIE. Ah, yes, that is you, that is what you said, “You women——”

MRS. TILSBURY. Really, Miss Slavinsky, I think we had better let
the subject drop. It is not a matter of great importance as to
whether Mr. Becker went to the theatre on a particular evening or
not. I think you said you came to give Miss Tilsbury a message
about the Parade to-morrow.

SOPHIE. And now you think I had better go like any messenger
boy. You are right. What has a poor working girl to do in a fine
house like this, and among fine people like you? Good-night,
Mrs. Tilsbury. Good-night Mrs. Brown. Good-night, Mr. Becker.
Good-night, Mildred. I shall see you to-morrow.

MILDRED. Don’t go like this, Sophie. Josephine did not mean to
hurt your feelings. She was only afraid that you would hurt Mr.
Becker’s feelings. Stay and talk to us all.

SOPHIE. No, Mildred, I know when I am _de trop_. Everybody is not
so amiable as you. I will go. Good-night, Mr. Van Tousel; you are
a kind man. If you will come to our theatre, the Cosmopolitan
Theatre, I will show you your seat right away, no matter how many
wait, and I will bring you a glass of water between every act.
Oh we have just dear little glasses, now that the law is passed
that each person has his own glass, just the sort to remind one
of a cocktail. I have borrowed three for my room. What night will
you come? To-night is Friday and the leading lady is ill and the
theatre is all dark. That is how I could come here, but by Monday
she will be all well again. You will come Monday, dear Mr. Van
Tousel, you promise, yes? Good-night, dear friends. (_Goes out._)

MRS. BROWN. What an extraordinary creature.

MILDRED. (_In defence._) She is a Pole and not used to our ways.
She has a most brilliant mind and speaks five languages.

MR. BECKER. Five slangs I should call it, if she is as proficient
in the other tongues as in the American. (_Turns towards Mrs.
Brown._) Is this your little dog, Mrs. Brown?

MRS. BROWN. My little pig, you mean. I was saying just now that I
can only take him out at night except in an automobile, because it
is against the law in New York to keep pigs. Only fancy, they used
to run around the streets as scavengers. Then they passed a law
forbidding keeping them at all.

MR. VAN TOUSEL Pity they don’t have them for scavengers now. I
don’t suppose they would strike and they feel quite at home in the
mud in some of the streets.

MR. BECKER. You women never think about anything but how to break
laws and yet you want to vote.

MILDRED. If we helped to make the laws, Mr. Becker, we wouldn’t
want to break them. One takes care of whatever one has made. I
used to have a maid who never put away my dresses carefully unless
she had put a clean collar or a fresh ruffle on one and then she
was always most particular to keep it nice. It seemed as if when
once she had put a little of her own hand work on a gown that it
acquired a new value for her.

MR. BECKER. Be law-abiding citizens first and prove yourselves fit
to vote. Women are natural law-breakers. Look how women smuggle.
The wealthiest and most fashionable are proud of cheating the
government by bringing in some gown or jewel without paying duty on
it. Mrs. Brown, here, wouldn’t think of keeping a pig if it were
not for the excitement of breaking the law.

MRS. BROWN. It isn’t that at all, Mr. Becker. I keep him to make
conversation. Other women have dogs for the purpose, but a unique
one is too expensive and there is almost nothing left to say about
an ordinary one. I never smuggled anything in my life—that is
nothing more important than a pair of silk stockings.

MR. BECKER. That illustrates what I was saying. Women make a
business of smuggling for the sake of excitement. Couldn’t you have
bought—the article in question just as well in New York, Mrs.
Brown?

MRS. TILSBURY. (_Anxious to keep the peace._) Cochon seems to be
making plenty of conversation at present. Were you at the meeting
this afternoon, Mr. Becker?

MRS. BROWN. It’s a foolish old law about pigs anyway. So far
from buying Cochon to break it, I never knew anything about it
until Mrs. de Huyster looked it up to keep me out of the Colonial
Caudlers. She said that my ancestress was the last woman to keep
pigs in New York, and that she defied the authorities and was
arrested; that a woman like that probably stole her caudle-cup
from some one else, and that I was not a proper person to become a
member of the society on that account.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. How interesting! Then your taste for pigs is an
example of heredity.

MR. BECKER. And your taste for law-breaking also. What is the
Society of Colonial Caudlers? I never heard of it.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. It is a very fine society, Mr. Becker. My mother is
one of its originators and a vice-president. All the members are
women who have inherited a caudle-cup from a Colonial ancestor, and
on New Year’s Day, they all meet and drink punch out of the cups.
It is a very exclusive society. I don’t wonder you have never heard
of it.

MRS. BROWN. It is very difficult to get in, but Mrs. de Huyster
couldn’t keep me out in spite of her raking up old history, for I
discovered that her cup was only pewter, and she had to turn all
her attention to passing a by-law that pewter cups were admissible
as well as silver. They had an awful time. It almost broke up the
whole society. The pewterites claimed to be the real thing because
they said that the pewter cups came over first and that silver cups
were not introduced until much later, and that only the parvenues
in the Colonies had silver cups.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Women are active in so many directions nowadays.
The Society of Colonial Caudlers shows how much they have done in
the line of historical research.

MR. BECKER. It is a pity they don’t spend a little more activity
in housekeeping. That little Pole would make an excellent cook
probably.

MILDRED. Oh, Mr. Becker, Sophie has too much education to do
housework.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_In desperation._) Were you at the meeting this
afternoon, Mr. Becker?

MR. BECKER. What meeting, Mrs. Tilsbury? I was at a Bank Directors’
meeting, an executive meeting of an Insurance Company, and at a
meeting of a special committee of the State Bar Association to
draft some measures which we hope to recommend to the Legislature.
I was at all these meetings. Which one do you refer to, Mrs.
Tilsbury?

MRS. TILSBURY. I meant the Woman’s Suffrage meeting.

MR. BECKER. I did not know anything about it. (_Turning to_
MILDRED.) You were not there I hope, Miss Tilsbury.

MILDRED. Indeed I was, Mr. Becker.

MRS. TILSBURY. Why Mildred was one of the principal speakers. That
is why I thought you would be there.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, Miss Tilsbury made her maiden speech—or should
I say the maiden’s speech? I congratulate you. It was fine.

MR. BECKER. I wonder your father allows it. You might better be at
home, darning his stockings.

MRS. BROWN. You are not in favor of Woman’s Suffrage I take it, Mr.
Becker.

MR. BECKER. No, indeed, I believe that the home is the best place
for women. The rough outside world is not suitable for them. When
I see you women crying for the ballot like a baby crying for the
moon, I think it would do you just as much good if you got it. You
might better be at home taking care of your children if you have
any. I dislike to see women trying to turn themselves into men.
They should be shielded and protected from all the disagreeable
things in the world.

MILDRED. Sometimes men do not protect them, Mr. Becker, but take
advantage of them instead.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Ah, Miss Mildred, that was a wonderful speech you
made this afternoon. Your speaking of men’s taking advantage of
women reminds me of the poor countess you told about.

MR. BECKER. What countess was that, Miss Tilsbury? Tell me about
her and you will see how much pleasanter it is to speak before a
sympathetic audience of one in a charming drawing-room than before
a hooting crowd in a bare, badly-ventilated political hall.

MILDRED. There was no hooting this afternoon. There was some
applause, but that was rather nice.

MR. BECKER. I will applaud if you will tell me the story.

MILDRED. But Mr. Van Tousel has already heard it.

MR. BECKER. Let him go and talk to Mrs. Brown then about her pig.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. I should like to hear it again. You tell it so
well, Miss Mildred.

MILDRED. Well, the Viscountess of Montacute was betrothed to Sir
George Maxwell. That was long ago in the days of George the First,
when a married woman’s property belonged absolutely to her husband
unless it was securely settled upon her before the marriage. The
Viscountess had a large estate and she wanted to keep it in her
own hands, but Sir George, while always declaring that he would
never touch her money, delayed signing the settlement from day
to day until finally the wedding day arrived and the bride was
putting on all her finery in one room in her castle and the groom
was struggling to get into his stiff white brocade coat in another;
then Lady Montacute suddenly thought of the paper still unsigned
and sent it to Sir George while the clergyman and all the guests
were waiting below. He came flying to her room.

“My dearest love,” he said, “how could you mortify me so by sending
that settlement to me to be signed before all my friends who were
helping me to dress? You showed them all that you distrust me and
that you think that I care more for your confounded fortune than
for your sweet self. If you have so little confidence in me, let
us break off the match before it is too late. I could not love an
unbelieving wife.”

The Viscountess burst into tears and almost washed off the little
black patch which her maid had just placed on her rouged cheek.

“Do not be so cruel, Sir George,” she cried. “It was those odious
lawyers who have been pressing me to insist upon you putting your
signature to this settlement. You know that I myself trust you
completely.”

Sir George clasped her in his arms regardless of her powdered hair
which showered upon his coat.

“You shall always be free to enjoy your fortune as you will,” he
promised, “the same as if you remained unwed.”

The Viscountess was so touched by his forgiveness of her lack of
faith in him that she gave no further thought to the settlement
and they went down-stairs hand in hand and were married by the
clergyman at once.

Needless to say, a few years later, Sir George claimed his marital
right to gamble away his wife’s fortune and the distressed
Viscountess went to the Lord Chancellor for protection, demanding
that Sir George be compelled to keep his promise that she should
enjoy her own estate. She found that she was powerless against her
husband since the promise was not in writing. The learned Judges
decided that soft words spoken in a moment of infatuation were not
fraudulent if afterwards their purport was neglected, and that
a lover’s vows do not constitute a contract though sealed with
Hymen’s torch, so the unfortunate lady was reduced to beggary.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Wonderfully dramatic. Beautifully told. When I
heard you repeat that story this afternoon, Miss Mildred, I was
more convinced than ever how necessary it is for women to have the
vote.

MR. BECKER. Such a thing could not happen in these days. The
married women’s property act has changed all that.

MILDRED. Women still have some wrongs which need to be remedied,
Mr. Becker, and a vote would be of great assistance to them in
righting those wrongs.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. And you are going to help me right them, Miss
Mildred. You remind me of St. Elizabeth. Every time you spoke this
afternoon it seemed as if a rose fell out from between your lips.

MILDRED. I thought it was the bread which she was carrying to the
poor which was turned into roses, Mr. Van Tousel, not the words she
spoke.

MR. BECKER. That is just what you modern women want to do, to give
the poor roses when they are crying for bread.

MILDRED. The miracle was performed in order that St. Elizabeth
might avoid the anger of her husband. He was a hard-hearted man and
objected to her charities.

MR. BECKER. Oh, that was different. You ought to have a husband to
send roses to you, Miss Tilsbury, but I suppose your head is so
full of these “old wives’ tales” that you never think of marriage.

MILDRED. I don’t know that I have thought very much about it as
regards myself.

MR. BECKER. Marriage is the highest aim of women’s existence, Miss
Tilsbury, and when she seeks to avoid it, she makes herself an
object of contempt to all right thinking men and women no matter
how much they may pretend to believe the contrary.

MILDRED. Sometimes a girl doesn’t meet a man she can love.

MR. BECKER. Then she should marry a man who loves her.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, Miss Mildred, it really doesn’t make any
difference whether you begin your dinner with soup and end with
ice-cream or begin with ice-cream and end with soup. It’s all the
same to you a week afterwards, and whether you begin with loving
your husband or being loved by him is the same in the end.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_To_ MRS. BROWN.) There they are, both at her
again, each in his own way. Do cut in and stop them.

MRS. BROWN. (_Humming softly._)


      “You take the high road,
      And I’ll take the low,
      But I will reach Scotland before you.”


Why not let them fight it out like the Kilkenny cats?

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, no! Remember you promised to help me!

MRS. BROWN. Well, which is the most dangerous? The anti for me, but
a girl’s taste may be different. Well, here I go. (_She walks over
to Mildred and the two men and addresses Mr. Van Tousel._) I think
I went to school with a sister of yours, Mr. Van Tousel.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. (_Sulky at being interrupted._) Very likely, Mrs.
Brown.

MRS. BROWN. At Mrs. Read’s,—Augusta Van Tousel. I think she must
have been your sister. Van Tousel is such an uncommon name.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. (_Becoming more interested._) There are only three
in the telephone directory, my mother and myself and a cousin of my
father’s. There is another family that spell the name T-o-u-s-l-e
instead of e-l; but I do not know anything about them.

MRS. BROWN. Your sister has married, has she not?

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, she married a German and lives in Berlin. She
is not interested in “the cause,” I regret to say.

MRS. BROWN. She was very much interested in American History when
she was in school, probably because she had so many ancestors who
helped to make it.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, we are descended from three Colonial
Governors, two Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and six
Generals.

MRS. BROWN. Dear me, and now you are keeping up the traditions of
your family by taking part in this live issue of the day—Woman
Suffrage. Do come over to the sofa, Mr. Van Tousel, and tell me all
about your sister. It is so long since I have seen her. (_They walk
over to sofa and sit down conversing._)

MR. BECKER. Have you known Mr. Van Foolsel a long time, Miss
Tilsbury?

MILDRED. Van Tousel! Mr. Becker, not Van Foolsel!

MR. BECKER. I beg his pardon, but a man like that gets on my
nerves. He isn’t willing to do a man’s work in the world and so he
approves of women’s going out of the home and working instead. If
I should marry, I would want to take care of my wife and not let
her take care of me. Don’t you think that is the right spirit, Miss
Tilsbury?

MILDRED. A woman doesn’t like to sit around idle, Mr. Becker.

MR. BECKER. Certainly not, but no woman need ever be idle. She has
her housekeeping, her children, her friends, her charities, books
to read, and plays to see. I only wish that I could command my time
as a woman can do, but I have to work.

MILDRED. Don’t you like to work?

MR. BECKER. Yes, but sometimes I wish I could set my clients to
work instead. They go to Europe and I stay at home to attend to
their affairs. Sometime or other, I hope to go to Europe and leave
my clients at home to attend to their own business. I wouldn’t want
to go alone though, it would be too lonesome. I shall wait until I
am married.

MILDRED. Will that be soon?

MR. BECKER. I hope so, unless women become voters and vote to
abolish matrimony.

MILDRED. I don’t believe there will be any danger of that.

MR. BECKER. I don’t know. You can’t tell what a mob of women will
do when they get started. Look at the way they behave at bargain
counters, and at the excesses of the women in the French Revolution.

MILDRED. I should not think you would want to marry if you feel
that way about women.

MR. BECKER. I am thinking of women in a crowd, not of exceptional
individuals.

MILDRED. Come and see the Parade to-morrow and you will think
differently. Everything is to be as well ordered and dignified as
possible.

MR. BECKER. Are you going to march?

MILDRED. Yes, indeed.

MR. BECKER. Well, I will come, but I shall imagine you as walking
up the aisle of a church as a bride. (_They continue conversing in
low tones._)

  (_Enter Katy who goes over to Mrs. Tilsbury._)

KATY. Can I speak with you for a moment, ma’am?

MRS. TILSBURY. What is it, Katy?

KATY. Helma says it is getting so late that she can’t wait to dish
up the dinner.

MRS. TILSBURY. Helma can’t wait to dish up the dinner? But Mr.
Tilsbury hasn’t come in yet. Why can’t she wait. Where is she going?

KATY. She is going to speak at a meeting at eight o’clock. Here she
is herself. She will explain it all to you.

  (_Enter Helma._)

MRS. TILSBURY. You are going to a meeting, Helma?

HELMA. Yes, a meeting for the advancement of the cause of Woman
Suffrage.

MRS. TILSBURY. Can’t you wait and go right after dinner? You
needn’t stop to wash the dishes. I don’t see how you can go now. We
are expecting Mr. Tilsbury every minute, and as soon as he comes we
will go right into the dining-room and begin.

HELMA. I can’t wait another minute. I am down as first speaker on
the programme, and the ladies would never forgive me if I was late.
I am to speak on “How it feels to vote.” I am the only lady in the
Society who has ever voted, for in Norway the women are as good as
men. No other member of the Society has had any experience and can
speak instead of me.

MRS. TILBURY. But, Helma, what will we do about our dinner? I will
give you two dollars if you will stay and serve the dinner. See,
this nice new two-dollar bill? You shall have this. My guests are
all here, and the dinner half cooked. Oh! you must not go now.

HELMA. I certainly must, Mrs. Tilsbury. I get five dollars for my
talk. Tell Katy to cook the dinner.

KATY. Indeed, and I will not, ma’am. It’s not my work. I wouldn’t
meddle with her dirty, Norwegian tricks. I won’t stay in the same
house with her any longer anyway. My young man says he will not
marry me if I do. She drove him out of the kitchen only yesterday,
sassing him about the boss of his district, and calling him a
low-down Irish pig. She said she would never vote for a Democrat,
but John says she will never vote for a Democrat or Republican
either, so long as the Irish rule New York.

HELMA. Seeing him would win me over to the Prohibition party.

KATY. Is it trying to be funny, you are Helma? No, John says that
women will neither vote nor smoke in the State of Greater New York,
so long as the green grass and golden harp in the hand are worth
all the stars and striped rainbows in the heavens.

MRS. TILSBURY. Katy, you shall have the two dollars if you will
serve up the dinner. It must be almost cooked, so it won’t be much
work, and then you and John can use the money for two tickets and
go to some nice play together to-morrow evening.

KATY. John’s not the boy for that, Mrs. Tilsbury. He wouldn’t take
a girl’s hard-earned money before he was married to her. I am going
to leave anyway now that Miss Mildred is being so talked about for
her views on votes for women. He says that the only difference
between men and women now is that men smoke and vote and women
don’t, and that to marry a girl who did both would be like having
another man about the house. He says he has his doubts about taking
a girl to wife out of this house.

HELMA. You never saw me smoke but once, Katy Flanigan. I took an
old stale cigarette out of a box Mr. Tilsbury had thrown away. I
won’t stay here to be talked to like this no longer. (_Goes out
noisily._)

MRS. TILSBURY. Does Helma really smoke.

KATY. Indeed yes, ma’am. Wasn’t Mr. Tilsbury after noticing last
night how fast his cigar box had emptied?

MRS. TILSBURY. How dreadful; but now that she has gone, do serve
the dinner and I will make it good to you.

                                           (_Kitchen bell rings._)

KATY. I can’t indeed, ma’am. There’s John now. The Union would
never let him marry a girl that did extra work that wasn’t her
own trade. (KATY _goes out hurriedly and almost knocks into_ MR.
TILSBURY _who is coming in_.)

MR. TILSBURY. What’s the trouble about, Josephine?

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, George. What has made you so late? Helma
wouldn’t wait any longer to cook the dinner because she has an
engagement to speak at a Woman Suffrage meeting and Katy won’t
do it because she doesn’t want to vote and she and Helma have
quarrelled about Katy’s beau. Everybody is here waiting for dinner
and I don’t know what I shall do. Why didn’t you come sooner?

MR. TILSBURY. I stopped in at the club for a minute and the fellows
persuaded me to make a fourth at bridge. It seemed kind of mean not
to when the three were just sitting there with nothing to do.

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, but there were five of us waiting for you here
at home and now there is no dinner. It’s all your fault, so it’s up
to you to suggest something. I have done my best.

MR. TILSBURY. Well, I guess we had better adjourn to a restaurant.
(_Goes forward to greet the others._) How do you do, Mrs. Brown.
Hello, Van Tousel; glad to see you Becker. It seems a domestic
tragedy has just occurred. Mrs. Tilsbury tells me that the cause of
Woman Suffrage is being fought out in our kitchen. It seems rather
a small floor for the solution of a world problem, but the cook,
who is a Norwegian and a suffragette, has hurried out to speak for
the cause, and the waitress, who is an anti, refuses to come to
the rescue. I think we had better let them fight it out and go to
Sherry’s for dinner where cooks and waiters are all voters. (_Goes
out to dress._)

MRS. BROWN. What shall I do with Cochon? Do you suppose I could
take him in with me at Sherry’s or had I better leave him here?

MRS. TILSBURY. I don’t know whether it would be wise to leave him
here. The Irish are so sensitive on the subject of pigs. Suppose we
leave him at your apartment as we go by. Come and put on your wrap
again.

                        (MRS. TILSBURY _and_ MRS. BROWN _go out_.)

MR. BECKER. Well, this is a fine example of what the
enfranchisement of woman will lead to; to be driven out of one’s
home by political dissension in the kitchen.

MILDRED. We believe in freedom for all women, Mr. Becker. One must
be willing to put up with a little inconvenience for the sake of
our convictions.

MR. BECKER. And go to a restaurant while your own dinner at home is
going to waste?

MILDRED. All food will be cooked in a central kitchen soon and sent
around to different homes. Cooking will be done outside of the
homes, just as dressmaking, baking, laundering, and lots of other
things have been transferred into independent industries. Women can
no longer be slaves in the house.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. (_Clapping his hands._) Splendid, splendid, Miss
Mildred. I have often thought the same thing.

                      (_Re-enter_ MRS. TILSBURY _and_ MRS. BROWN.)

MR. BECKER. Well, I hope I won’t live to see that day.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. You will have to take a position as a chef, Becker,
and eat your own cooking.

MILDRED. Oh, Josephine, I have had such a splendid idea. Let me go
down-stairs and finish cooking the dinner.

MR. BECKER Miss Tilsbury, I admire your spirit.

MRS. TILSBURY. Why, Mildred, you are too tired after making that
speech to do anything of the kind. Besides you know how hard it is
to get your father to go to a restaurant for dinner. He always says
he is afraid of ptomaine poisoning. It will be a great deal more
fun to dine at Sherry’s than to stay here. I am glad Helma has gone
speechifying. Don’t let your father hear your ridiculous suggestion.

MRS. BROWN. Yes, Mildred, do keep quiet. Think of the lights and
the music and the women’s dresses. It will be awfully amusing.
Hurry and put on your cloak!

                                        (_Re-enter_ MR. TILSBURY.)

MR. TILSBURY. Are you all ready? I have telephoned for two taxi’s.

MRS. BROWN. Yes, indeed. Hurray for Woman Suffrage! This is the
first time I have ever been in favor of it.

MR. BECKER. The breaking-up of the American home, may it long be
averted.

                                          (_All go out. Curtain._)




                              ACT II


                              SCENE I

    _The scene is the same as in Act I. The room is empty when_
    MILDRED _enters with_ EDWARD MELVIN. _She is dressed in a
    short white serge dress with green sash and purple band
    over the left shoulder, draped like the garter ribbon._
    MELVIN _carries a large white banner on which is painted in
    green and purple letters, “Daughters of the Danaïdes_.”

MILDRED. (_Half hysterical._) You have been so kind to me, I shall
never forget it. I do not know what I should have done without your
help. I thought I was going to faint right there in the street,
and the crowd was jeering so. Then you suddenly appeared like a
Lohengrin and seized the standard and assisted me down the side
street. I could never have reached home if you had not hailed
the taxicab and brought me back. I should have been afraid to
take a street taxicab myself. One hears such awful stories about
kidnapping.

MR. MELVIN. Yet you were not afraid to go with me—a perfect
stranger!

MILDRED. I knew the Club on the corner out of which you ran, what
nice men belong to it. Those in the window were all joking you
when you left them, but you didn’t care. You came and helped me in
spite of everything. When you were beside me and I could see your
eyes, I felt sure you were to be trusted. I didn’t think anything
more about it.

MR. MELVIN. (_Slightly embarrassed._) How heavy this banner is.
They should not have given it to a child like you to carry. It
would be a weighty burden for a man.

MILDRED. I am not a child! It is this short skirt that makes
me look like one. I am over eighteen years old. The members of
the Society chose me as standard bearer because it is a great
honor. They said that I had done so much for the cause both in
contributions and personal service that it was my right to carry
the banner.

MR. MELVIN. So you contribute to the Campaign Funds. Well, that is
an important thing to do, the most important perhaps.

MILDRED. Oh, I didn’t mean to give the impression that I have given
so much. I really only give what I ought, because you see most of
the members are factory girls and typewriters, self-supporting
women who have all they can do to pay their monthly dues of ten
cents.

MR. MELVIN. (_Reading from the banner._) “Daughters of the
Danaïdes.” So that is the name of your society, is it?

MILDRED. Yes. Mrs. Dunstan chose it. She is so clever and has read
everything. She says it is an alliteration worthy of Henry James.

MR. MELVIN. Do you know what the Danaïdes did?

MILDRED. (_Solemnly._) They murdered their husbands.

MR. MELVIN. Is that the purpose of your Society? Have you all vowed
to murder your husbands?

MILDRED. I don’t think we shall any of us ever marry.

MR. MELVIN. How about Mrs. Dunstan?

MILDRED. Oh, she divorced hers.

MR. MELVIN. Don’t you think a man ought to be afraid of you when
you belong to such a murderously named society?

MILDRED. Mrs. Dunstan explained to us that ours was symbolic, that
we must kill figuratively by destroying the peace of every man who
does not believe in Woman Suffrage.

MR. MELVIN. Are you going to begin by destroying mine?

MILDRED. Don’t you believe in Woman Suffrage?

MR. MELVIN. Not for you.

MILDRED. Why not for me?

MR. MELVIN. Because you are too pretty.

MILDRED. How ridiculous! What has looks to do with it? Homely men
vote.

MR. MELVIN. (_Looking up at the painting._) Is that your mother’s
portrait?

MILDRED. Yes, how did you know it? Everyone says I don’t look a bit
like her.

MR. MELVIN. Your smile is the same.

MILDRED. I wish the portrait were mine.

MR. MELVIN. Isn’t it?

MILDRED. No. My mother willed it to my father. She left everything
else to me, but I would rather have had the portrait and not so
much money.

MR. MELVIN. Do you remember your mother?

MILDRED. Yes. She only died six years ago. I often come down here
in the evenings when my father and stepmother are out and curl up
in that corner of the sofa and try to recall what she said to me
when I was a little girl and to imagine how she would advise me
now, when I am puzzled what to do.

MR. MELVIN. Was she a supporter of votes for women too?

MILDRED. When mother was alive, Woman Suffrage was not so
prominent. Of course, there were societies and clubs but they were
composed more of professional women, doctors, and lawyers. Society
women had not taken it up and I don’t suppose mother ever thought
anything about the subject.

MR. MELVIN. Wise woman. That is the best way to treat it. You would
be much happier if you didn’t think anything about it.

MILDRED. But those poor girls, they have to struggle so hard to get
a living. I must help them.

MR. MELVIN. Helping them is a different proposition, but would the
vote help them so much at present?

MILDRED. It is a great power.

MR. MELVIN. So great a power that if your girls had the vote, there
are plenty of people who would try to control it for them. Try to
improve the ideals of your girls, in dress and in way of living.
Try to bring about an improvement in the conditions of their work,
but don’t mix them up in politics. Not just yet anyway.

MILDRED. Mrs. Thom says it is the only way.

MR. MELVIN. Who is Mrs. Thom?

MILDRED. She is one of our greatest leaders.

MR. MELVIN. Did you ever wonder what your mother would have said to
all this tomfoolery? Don’t you care more for your mother’s opinion
than for that of Mrs. Thom?

MILDRED. Why do you call it tomfoolery?

MR. MELVIN. Can you call it anything else? These parades and
platform speeches, these huge badges and conspicuous standards?
Daughters of the Danaïdes! Do you know what punishment was
inflicted upon the Danaïdes?

MILDRED. No.

MR. MELVIN. They were condemned to carry water in a sieve.

MILDRED. (_After a slight pause._) You mean that my efforts in the
cause of Woman Suffrage are futile? That I am trying to carry water
in a sieve?

MR. MELVIN. Are you getting any results?

MILDRED. We increased our membership last year from two hundred to
over a thousand.

MR. MELVIN. Statistics. Have you gained anything? Made any real
advance? Do your members really want to vote?

MILDRED. How can you talk to me in this way! There are a great
many nice and clever women in our Society who believe in the
enfranchisement of women sincerely, and would make any sacrifice
to accomplish it. Look at my stepmother. She is naturally fond of
art and fond of society, but she has neglected both to work in the
cause. We are not trying to carry water in a sieve.

MR. MELVIN. Forgive me. I did not mean to annoy you. You are so
tired too. Run and lie down now, and forget all about women’s
rights and wrongs for a while. I am going to ask you to let me call
again sometime and you shall try to convert me. Here is my card.
Your father will know who I am.

MILDRED. (_Taking card._) Thank you. I do feel rather done up.
Thank you again for seeing me home.

    (MELVIN _leaves by one door_. MILDRED _goes over to the
    banner which he has left on a chair, rolls it up and puts
    it in a corner. Then she leaves the room by the other
    door._)


                              SCENE 2

    _Enter_ MRS. TILSBURY, MRS. BROWN, MR. BECKER, _and_ MR. VAN
    TOUSEL.

MRS. TILSBURY. Well, the parade is over, thank goodness. Now we
four will have a nice little game of Auction. Half a cent a point,
no more. What do you say, Imogene?

MRS. BROWN. I don’t know whether I dare. I have been losing so all
the week. I don’t half believe in playing for money, Josephine. Our
Rector gave us such a touching sermon about it last week I almost
cried in church.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Oh, come along, Mrs. Brown, be a sport. Probably
you will win to-day. I always find myself even at the end of the
year when I play often enough.

MR. BECKER. Yes, one’s gains and losses generally balance in the
long run. We can’t play auction without having a little something
at stake. It makes one careless in one’s game.

MRS. BROWN. Well, I will play one rubber at half a cent a point,
and if I win I will play another, but where shall I put Cochon?

MRS. TILSBURY. Here, give him to me. I’ll put him in the wood-box.
It has not been filled as usual.

MRS. BROWN. But it is so hard. Put this sofa-cushion in first.

MRS. TILSBURY. Stop, that is my best sofa-cushion. Here, I’ll put
your muff under. It is so big and soft, it will fill it up nicely.

MRS. BROWN. No, he can’t have that, it is my new muff. Perhaps
he won’t find the wooden boards so hard after all, he is growing
pretty fat. Did ’oo mind the bare boards, dearie? Will ’oo be comfy
in the wood-box? Oh, did I tell you the experience I had yesterday
in regard to him? A well-dressed woman stopped me in the street and
showed me a badge of the S.P.C.A. She said that she lived across
the street from me and had often noticed my little dog. She wished
to tell me that he was out of proportion across the haunches,
probably because I did not feed him properly, and that unless I
gave the matter my immediate attention and changed his diet, she
would have me arrested for maltreating an animal. She went on to
say that she had often tried to get a photograph of the dog to
present as an exhibit to the society, but that I never seemed
to take him out in the daytime, which was another example of my
cruelty to him.

MRS. TILSBURY. Did you ever! What are we coming to? What did you
say to her?

MR. BECKER. Just as I said, Mrs. Brown. You women are determined
to break the laws. You seem to think that laws are made only to be
broken.

MRS. TILSBURY.


      The men of New York take pleasure in making
      Laws that the women take pleasure in breaking.


Do tell us, Imogene, what answer did you make to that impertinent
woman?

MRS. BROWN. I told her to mind her own business.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Excellent.

MRS. TILSBURY. What did she say to that?

MRS. BROWN. She said she was minding her own business but that she
was going to mind it still better, as I should soon find out. I am
afraid I shall be forced to move.

MR. BECKER. Or to give up Cochon.

MRS. BROWN. Give up Cochon! Why, Mr. Becker, I love Cochon just
as much as though he were a dog, and do you know what sacrifices
women make for the sake of their dogs? There is Mrs. Davenant for
instance. She received a perfectly wonderful invitation to visit
some people of title in England and because she could not take her
little chow dog Peeksie with her unless she was separated from
him for two weeks while he was shut up in that odious Quarantine,
she refused the invitation. She said she had never been away from
Peeksie for a night since she had first bought him two years
ago. She wrote to the Port authorities and offered to go to the
Quarantine with Peeksie, but they replied that there was no room
for her, that the largest pen was three feet by five for a St.
Bernard.

MRS. TILSBURY. I hope Mrs. Davenant took that for a reflection on
her size. She is really growing enormous. She ought to roll more.

MR. BECKER. Does Mr. Davenant like to have that dog around his room
all night?

MRS. BROWN. No, he and Mrs. Davenant have been occupying different
rooms ever since Peeksie came. Mr. Davenant got up once in the dark
and kicked her.

ALL. Kicked Mrs. Davenant!

MRS. BROWN. No, Peeksie! He said it was by mistake but Mrs.
Davenant was never quite sure that it was.


    (MRS. TILSBURY _goes to corner of room and arranges table_.)


MR. VAN TOUSEL. That S.P.C.A. is a worthy society although the zeal
of one member seems to have been misdirected in your case, Mrs.
Brown. My mother is vice-president of one of its branches.

MRS. BROWN. Your mother seems to be vice-president in a good many
societies, Mr. Van Tousel.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, in sixty-three.

MRS. BROWN. Any Suffragists’ Society?

MR. VAN TOUSEL. No. I regret to say my mother is an
anti-suffragist. She says she has no time to vote. She calls
herself an old-fashioned woman.

MR. BECKER. I should like to meet your mother, Van Tousel.

MRS. BROWN. So should I.

MR. BECKER. To try and make a Suffragist of her, I suppose. You
women are all natural proselytizers.

MRS. BROWN. No, indeed. I should like to meet Mrs. Van Tousel
because she is an old-fashioned woman. I am an old-fashioned woman
and like seeks like.

MR. BECKER. You an old-fashioned woman? How absurd! How about your
Bridge playing?

MRS. BROWN. I only do that to please my friends. Old-fashioned
women were brought up to study how to please.

MR. BECKER. And Cochon, there, doesn’t he make you up-to-date?

MRS. BROWN. He is a domestic animal, a barn yard animal, and
all old-fashioned women used to busy themselves about barn yard
animals. I remember when I was a little girl, I used to go with
my grandmother on the farm every morning to see the pigs fed.
It is only lately, Mr. Becker, that the hog business has been
incorporated and taken away from the list of home activities.
Women’s work used to be in the home, but now they are driven out
to work in factories and offices. Women used to be guardians of
the hearth like the Vestal Virgins, but now they are driven out
into the world to earn money to pay for the gas that the gas stove
consumes. Instead of the “eternal flame,” we have the intermittent
gas jet. My cook tries to make it eternal though, she always
forgets to turn it off.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Bravo, Mrs. Brown. We shall soon have you on the
platform making speeches.

MRS. BROWN. Not on your life. I was only trying to point out the
changes in the times to Mr. Becker.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_Returning._) How shall we play? You and Mr. Van
Tousel, Imogene, and Mr. Becker and I?

MR. BECKER. We should cut for partners. You women never have a
sense of fair play.

MRS. BROWN. Is cutting the cards fair play, Mr. Becker? I thought
it was chance.

MRS. TILSBURY. I thought we would begin that way and pivot
afterwards.

MR. BECKER. It is always better to begin fairly. We may not have
time for more than one rubber. (_They cut for partners._)

MRS. BROWN. Well, you and I seem to be partners, Josephine.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Oh, that won’t do. The ladies against the gentlemen.

MR. BECKER. It is quite appropriate for the ending of to-day. Sex
against sex. It is your deal, Mrs. Tilsbury? shall I make up the
cards?

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh, dear, the points of these pencils are all
broken. Will some one sharpen them?

MR. BECKER. That means you and me, Van Tousel. I have never seen a
woman who could sharpen a pencil.

MRS. BROWN. It is certainly much nicer to have some one else to do
it. Sharpening pencils is such dirty work. (_The men sharpen the
pencils while the women look on._)

MRS. BROWN. Did you ever see anything so funny as that parade
anyway? There wasn’t a decently dressed woman in the whole crowd
nor a good-looking one either—(_suddenly remembering where she
is_)—except Mildred.

MRS. TILSBURY. Those women with the sandwich boards with “Votes for
Women” painted on them were as shapeless as the boards.

MRS. BROWN. The United Home Helpers Union seemed to me to have the
most style.

MRS. TILSBURY. That is because most of them are domestic servants,
and they were wearing their mistresses’ old clothes or new ones. My
cook asked me to give her my second-best tailor-made suit and I did
not dare to refuse for fear she would leave before my dinner-party
next week. I am sure she will go immediately after. I hated to give
it to her for it was in very good condition. Now, I have nothing
but my best one to wear in the mornings.

MRS. BROWN. I wouldn’t mind that. Gwendolen Jones had one exactly
like it except it is gray instead of heliotrope. If you wear yours
in the morning, she can hardly go on wearing hers to Bridge parties
in the afternoons as if it were something dressy. She will be
furious with you, for she will be compelled to get something new at
last.

MRS. TILSBURY. Gwendolen wasn’t in the parade, was she?

MRS. BROWN. No, not one of what the newspapers call the society
women marched. They seemed to lack the courage of their convictions.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Perhaps they were afraid of making themselves
conspicuous.

MRS. BROWN. They have been making themselves notorious in the
newspapers lately.

MR. BECKER. That is a very different thing. If they marched in the
street every one would see them as they are, but if described in
the newspapers they appear flatteringly represented by flattered
reporters.

MRS. BROWN. The men who marched looked awfully shamefaced. Most of
them looked like tramps at one dollar per head from the way they
walked. Why didn’t you march, Mr. Van Tousel?

MR. VAN TOUSEL. I felt it my duty to act as escort to you ladies.

MRS. BROWN. I wouldn’t dare ask you why you didn’t march, Mr.
Becker. You might scalp me instead of the pencil. Did any of you
notice the girl who carried the banner in the Confederation of Lady
Milliners. She reeled about as if she were dizzy. (_Sees banner in
the corner._) Oh, there is Mildred’s banner against the wall. I can
show you how she did it. (_Picks up banner and staggers across the
room with it._)

MRS. TILSBURY. Is that Mildred’s banner? Why the child must have
come back. Nothing could separate her from her banner. I hope she
was not taken ill. She looked quite well when she passed us. I did
not suppose she would be back for two hours. I thought we would
have plenty of time for our game.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Doesn’t Miss Tilsbury allow you to play bridge?

MRS. TILSBURY. She doesn’t quite approve of it. She is so serious
minded, dear child, she looks upon it as frivolous.

MR. BECKER. As the child is inclined, the parent is bent.


    (_Enter_ MRS. THOM, _and_ MISS SLAVINSKY, _her arm in a
    sling_.)

KATY. (_Announcing._) Mrs. Mary Henrietta Thom, Miss Sophie
Slavinsky.

MRS. TILSBURY. I am so pleased to see you, Mrs. Thom. Mrs. Brown,
Mrs. Thom, Mr. Becker, Mr. Van Tousel. How do you do, Miss
Slavinsky. You have met every one here before, I think.

SOPHIE. That’s the ticket. How do you do, everybody?

MRS. THOM. (_Turning to everyone._) I came in, Mrs. Tilsbury, to
inquire about Mildred. I have been so anxious about her.

MRS. TILSBURY. Then Mildred is at home? We just now saw her banner
standing in the corner and I was going to ask if she had returned.
I felt sure that she and her standard could not be far apart.

MRS. THOM. She is most loyal to her beliefs. I am anxious to hear
that she is safely back. Miss Slavinsky is a Daughter of the
Danaïdes and she ran forward at one of the halts——

MRS. BROWN. (_Aside to_ MR. BECKER.) At which halt? It seemed to me
to be a very halting procession.

MRS. THOM.—and she told me that Mildred had fainted and been
carried off by a strange man in a taxicab.

ALL. What!

MRS. THOM. One hears such frightful stories about men enticing
girls into taxicabs that I was much alarmed naturally and hurried
here at once, meaning to give an alarm to the Police Station if she
should not have returned.

MRS. BROWN. (_Aside._) She wanted an excuse to get out of the
procession.

MRS. TILSBURY. It was probably some man she knew, Mrs. Thom.
Mildred would never go in a taxicab with a stranger.

SOPHIE. (_Who has been making eyes at_ MR. VAN TOUSEL, _interrupts
excitedly_.) No, Mrs. Tilsbury, she did not know him. I heard
him say, “Although you have never seen me before, will you trust
yourself to me?” It was most romantic.

MRS. TILSBURY. Why didn’t you stop her?

SOPHIE. What could I do. The order came at that instant, forward,
march. I had to obey.

MRS. TILSBURY. You might have jumped into the taxicab with her.

SOPHIE. Then we might both have been destroyed. No, I stayed safe
to protect her and took the number of the cab—2961.

MRS. THOM. See what mental training does for a woman. Miss
Slavinsky is a business woman. She has learned to control her
emotions and to use her judgment. Instead of madly jumping into the
cab after Mildred as Mrs. Tilsbury suggests, she very wisely made a
note in her mind of the number so that the cab could be traced.

MRS. BROWN. Suppose she has made a mistake in the number and that
we trace the wrong cab? I very often think that I can remember a
telephone number, and that I won’t take the trouble to look it up
in that difficult telephone directory. So I give the number to
Central and some one I don’t know at all answers the call. I don’t
let on to Central, however. I look up the right number and repeat
it to her and scold her for having given me the wrong one in the
first place, but it all takes a lot more time than if I had not
depended upon my memory for numbers.

MRS. THOM. Miss Slavinsky’s profession as an usheress in a theatre
trains her memory for numbers. She has to remember the number of
the seats.

SOPHIE. Mr. Becker does not agree with you, Mrs. Thom.

MR. BECKER. Your memory is only too good, Miss Slavinsky.

MRS. THOM. Here we are talking when we are not yet sure whether
Mildred is in the house or not. That may be another banner of the
Daughters of the Danaïdes or that man may have sent it here to get
it out of his way so that he might not be traced by its presence.
The motto of the D. D.’s is, _Savoir et faire_,—“To know and to
do.” Mrs. Tilsbury, will you ascertain if your step-daughter is in
the house or not, so that we may act accordingly.

MRS. BROWN. (_To the men._) _Savoir et faire_—what a difference
that little word “et” makes?

MRS. TILSBURY. I will go and see. (_Goes out._)

MRS. THOM. I hope that both of you gentlemen are supporters of the
cause.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. (_Blithely._) I am.

SOPHIE. Mr. Van Tousel is a hero, Mrs. Thom.

MRS. THOM. Have you signed the petition?

MR. VAN TOUSEL. (_Blankly._) What petition?

MRS. THOM. The petition to the Legislature of the State asking them
to enfranchise the enslaved part of its population. You evidently
have not signed it or you would know, I suppose—or are you one
of those gentlemen of leisure who leave all their thinking and
acting to their secretaries? Here. (_Takes roll of paper out of
her pocket._) You might as well sign it now. Is there pen and ink
in that desk over there or is it a purely ornamental piece of
furniture?

MR. VAN TOUSEL. (_Meekly taking the paper and going over to the
desk with it._) Where shall I sign it, Mrs. Thom?

MRS. THOM. Right there under the last one. You have not forgotten
how to sign your name, I suppose. Even people living on an unearned
income are obliged to endorse their dividend checks, I believe.

MR. BECKER. Unless their investments are in bonds and then they
only need a pair of scissors. In that case, the shears is mightier
than the pen.

MRS. BROWN. (_Aside to_ MR. BECKER.) Is Mrs. Thom a socialist, Mr.
Becker?

MR. BECKER. It looks like it. You believe in universal brotherhood,
I presume, Mrs. Thom?

MRS. THOM. If it includes the sisterhood also, Mr. Becker. (_To_
MR. VAN TOUSEL.) Ah, that is right. Think how pleased your mother
will be.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. My mother doesn’t believe in the enfranchisement
of women, Mrs. Thom. She is Vice-President of the Women’s
Anti-Suffrage League.

MRS. THOM. Your mother doesn’t believe in the enfranchisement
of women! She is a disgrace to her sex. It is the women who,
coddled in the lap of luxury, are unwilling to turn out from
their enervating seraglios to do an honest day’s work for the
hard-working women and girls of the People who do the most damage
to the cause! It is they whom tricky politicians make use of when
they say that they would give their support to the enfranchisement
of our sex if they thought that the majority of women really wanted
to vote.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. But my mother doesn’t live in a seraglio, Mrs. Thom.

MRS. THOM. Oh, I know, they don’t call it by that name in polite
society because here in New York the rule is, different wives,
different roofs, and one is not supposed to know of the existence
of the other. One lives in a brown stone Fifth Avenue mansion, and
another in a Harlem flat.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. But, Mrs. Thom, my mother is a widow.

MRS. THOM. Then she should be on our subscription list. She can’t
give the excuse that her husband does not approve of it. I will
call and see her. (_Takes out notebook and writes in it._) Now, Mr.
Becker, please, directly below Mr. Van Tousel.

MRS. BROWN. (_Aside._) She talks like a dentist.

MR. BECKER. I will not sign the petition, Mrs. Thom. I do not want
women to have the vote.

MRS. THOM. You don’t believe in “the cause”!

MR. BECKER. I do not consider it a cause.

MRS. THOM. Oh, you are one of those men who try to raise themselves
by keeping women down. You are a dog in the manger, who never
has and never will do any good for your country, yourself, and
who tries to keep others from being patriotic. The vote of women
means the purification of the government. Well, we don’t want your
signature. It will never represent anything. (_Rolls up petition
and puts in her pocket._)

SOPHIE. How did you enjoy the play the other night, Mr. Van Tousel?
Did I not usher you in beautifully? Don’t you think women ushers
beat the men?

MR. VAN TOUSEL. You were certainly very attentive, Miss Slavinsky.

SOPHIE. Come again, Mr. Van Tousel, and let me usher you again to
your seat. It is nice to care for a real gentleman who neither
jollies one nor finds faults about trifles. Remember the centre
aisle.

                                       (_Re-enter_ MRS. TILSBURY.)

MRS. TILSBURY. Mildred is back. She is completely exhausted and
is lying down. It seems she found the banner too heavy for her. A
strange man did see her home. Here is his card: “Mr. Edward Melvin,
Harmony Club.”

MRS. THOM. What a narrow escape for her.

SOPHIE. We might never have heard of her again.

MRS. BROWN. You forget your number, Miss Slavinsky.

MRS. TILSBURY. I cannot think what got into Mildred. She is usually
so diffident with strangers. She wants to see you, Mrs. Thom; you
too, Miss Slavinksy. Will you come up to her room? (_She starts to
leave the room but is stopped by_ VAN TOUSEL.)

MR. VAN TOUSEL. One moment, Mrs. Tilsbury. I am afraid I cannot
stay any longer. We have an early dinner to-night, because my
mother is to preside at a meeting of the X.Y.Z. The President is
ill, and she as Vice-President must be there on time. I promised
to be home promptly. Let me thank you for a delightful afternoon.
To see a noble army of martyrs—of women I mean, marching through
the street in thinly clad delicate feet, bearing heavy banners for
the sake of freedom, is an inspiring sight. It should make every
man stop and think how much he owes to that other sex which we are
accustomed to look upon as less enduring than our own.

SOPHIE. Mr. Van Tousel, you give me thrills.

MRS. THOM. Mr. Van Tousel, it is a pleasure to have met you.

MR. BECKER. (_To_ MRS. BROWN.) Having signed the petition and
thereby sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, he is bound to
tell every one how good it is and how much he likes pottage. I
admire his obstinacy.

SOPHIE. I must go too. I forgot I have an engagement, Mrs. Thom.
Give my love to Mildred. I will come and see her to-morrow. Will
you be so kind as to put me in a car, Mr. Van Tousel, at the corner
please. The cops are so rough to a poorly dressed working girl who
is out alone after dark. They say, “I will run you in if I catch
you again.” Good-night, Mrs. Tilsbury, Good-night, Mrs. Brown.
Good-night, Mr. Woman Hater.

MRS. THOM. Good-night, Sophie. I know the way to Mildred’s room,
Mrs. Tilsbury. You need not leave your friends. (_Goes out._)

MRS. TILSBURY. Good-night, Mr. Van Tousel. I am sorry that you must
go so soon and that we shall not have our little game. I hope it is
only postponed however. (MRS. TILSBURY _shakes hands with_ MR. VAN
TOUSEL, _who goes out, followed by_ SOPHIE.)

MRS. TILSBURY. Excuse me a moment. I will be right back. I don’t
want Mrs. Thom to excite Mildred.

MRS. BROWN. Wait, and tell us something about Mrs. Thom.

MR. BECKER. The lady seems to know her way about.

MRS. TILSBURY. Don’t you know who she is? Why she is one of the
most important fighters for “the cause.” Don’t you remember the
lawsuit she brought last year against the bootblack at the entrance
to the Brooklyn Bridge? She wanted to sit up in his chair and have
her boots blackened during the rush hours and the boy objected and
said it wasn’t customary. They got into a dispute while a whole
line of men were kept waiting. Finally the bootblack became angry
and declared he would not do it and that he had not the facilities
for blackening ladies’ boots. She said that she didn’t wear ladies’
boots and he replied that “of course, since she wasn’t a lady, she
couldn’t wear ladies’ boots, but he’d be darned if he would touch
her old footgear anyway.” The newspapers were full of the case.
I wonder you did not read about it, but I suppose you were not
interested. Mildred read it aloud to me because she is a friend of
Mrs. Thom.

MRS. BROWN. Did Mrs. Thom bring an action against the bootblack?

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, she claimed that blackening boots is a public
utility service and that a bootblack stand in the street occupies
public property and should be open to all taxpayers, men or women.
The boy retaliated by demanding damages for his loss of patronage
while he and Mrs. Thom were fighting it out. He said it was more
difficult to please women than men and that he didn’t want women
clients, that the women would be setting up boot stands next and
taking all the trade away from the men just as they were trying to
do in the newspaper selling. The Anti’s took up the controversy
and said it was improper for women to have their boots blackened
in public because they were obliged to lift their skirts too high.
I can’t stay any longer. Mrs. Thom will have talked Mildred out of
her last cent.

MRS. BROWN. Tell us first, which won out, Mrs. Thom or the
bootblack?

MRS. TILSBURY. Can you ask, having met Mrs. Thom? (_She goes out._)

MRS. BROWN. Mr. Becker, it seems to me that you and I are the only
two people around here who have any sense left. I can see that you
believe in the old-fashioned doctrine that the man should go out
into the world to make his fame and fortune and that the woman
should try to make a happy home to which he may return. That is my
doctrine also.

MR. BECKER. “Man for the field and woman for the hearth.”

MRS. BROWN. Exactly. How concisely expressed. Is that original, Mr.
Becker?

MR. BECKER. No. It is from Tennyson’s _Princess_.

MRS. BROWN. You are so clever. You know everything. I couldn’t help
but admire the way you answered Mrs. Thom. Why do women make such
fools of themselves? They can never be so clever as men. Why do
they try to be?

MR. BECKER. My dear Mrs. Brown, I cannot tell you what pleasure
it has given me to have met you to-day, to come across one
sensible, well balanced woman in this crowd of neurotic, hysterical
feminists. Women are making the great mistake nowadays of thinking
of themselves as a separate class instead of as a sex, that half
of humanity which, keeping within its hemisphere of duties and
responsibilities, makes the completion and perfection of the whole.
The feminine sex is like—like a tire on the wheel of an automobile.
The tire is of no use without the revolving power imparted by the
engine to the wheel, and then it is the means of furnishing a
smooth motion to the car and of preventing jars and dislocations
of the machinery. This has always been woman’s true function, the
elimination of the jolts of life so that men’s more aggressive
activities may proceed gently on.

MRS. BROWN. Oh, Mr. Becker. What a charming expression and how
original—women’s hemisphere. I have always rather resented the
expression woman’s sphere—as if women had no share in the human
interest but were apart by themselves. But women’s hemisphere! Why
it reminds me of a cotillion figure where one goes around to find
the holder of the other half of a favor. It is like clasping hands.
Do let us shake hands on that expression, Mr. Becker. (_They shake
hands warmly._)

MR. BECKER. Yes, women seem to be losing sight of the fact that
their interests are identical with those of men, that, therefore,
they are represented now, and that to vote themselves would only
mean sex antagonism and an increased multiplicity of our already
too numerous ballots.

MRS. BROWN. What is that smell of scorching? Oh, Mr. Becker, I am
afraid it is Cochon in the wood-box. It was too near the fire. Oh,
take him away, quick!

MR. BECKER. (_Lifting pig out of the wood-box._) It is only his
blanket that is slightly scorched. Your pet seems to be all right,
Mrs. Brown.

MRS. BROWN. Oh, my dear little piggy-wiggy. Did his muzzer forget
all about her owny-tony, while she was talking about those horrid
women’s rights? It was a shame, so it was. (_Takes off blanket._)
No, he is not hurt at all. How fortunate!

MR. BECKER. You do not admire Lamb’s Essay on Roast Pig, I take it,
Mrs. Brown?

MRS. BROWN. An Essay on Roast Pig? What a subject. Is it a
cook-book?

MR. BECKER. No, but a very appetizing article. If you should read
it, Mrs. Brown, you would regret that you remembered your pet so
soon. I will send you a copy of the essay.

MRS. BROWN. How cruel you are, Mr. Becker. I was just going to ask
you to call, but now I do not know whether it would be kind to
Cochon.

MR. BECKER. I will call and bring the book with me. We think alike
about roasting Woman Suffrage, why not the same about roasting pigs?

MRS. BROWN. When you see Cochon in his dear little basket with its
blue lining perhaps you will think differently and prefer roast
chicken.

MR. BECKER. We will see. I must go now. I hear Mrs. Thom coming
down-stairs and I do not want to see her again.

MRS. BROWN. You are afraid of a woman after all. You have been
saying that they make life easy like a tire on an automobile.

MR. BECKER. You know what happens when a tire breaks. Mrs. Thom
is a broken tire and I can hear the gas rapidly escaping now.
Good-bye, good-bye. Make my excuses to Mrs. Tilsbury, please. I
shall bring the book very soon. (MR. BECKER _goes out hurriedly by
one door as_ MRS. THOM _and_ MRS. TILSBURY _enter by the other_.)

MRS. THOM. Dear child, how generous she is. Always wanting to
give to “the cause.” I forgot to ask her to make out that check
to my order, because our treasurer has just resigned. She had a
disagreement with an auditor about the way she kept the books and
we have not had time to elect another. Will you tell Mildred,
please?

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, I’ll tell her. The check to your order as
President of the Association.

MRS. THOM. Now, Mrs. Brown, I hope you are going to give up
fondling that dirty little pig and show yourself to be a true
woman, loyal to the cause of freedom. There is a vacancy in the
Daughters of the Danaïdes—for we keep strictly to a limited number
in our sub-societies. I will propose you, Miss Tilsbury will
second you, and there you are. The dues are ten cents a month, but
of course each member is expected to contribute according to her
means. If you should sell that nicely fattened pig to a butcher,
you could give us a tidy little sum without feeling it.

MRS. BROWN. Mrs. Thom, Cochon has just escaped a terrible death
from the flames. He shall not be handed over to the sword. He shall
not be made a victim to the modern woman’s propensity to desert
the home and children, to philander around after responsibilities
for which she is unfitted by nature. As Mr. Becker just quoted so
beautifully, “Man for the field and woman for the hearth.”

MRS. THOM. Well, it’s the baseball field and golf field then, I
guess. As for the hearth, give me steam heat—it’s cleaner and has
more go to it.

MRS. TILSBURY. Why, where is Mr. Becker?

MRS. BROWN. He has gone home or to his Club. I think that he has
had all of women’s rights that he can stand for one afternoon.
If you make enemies of all the men who have the power to grant
the vote to women, Mrs. Thom, how are you going to obtain it? Get
what you want first and fight the men afterwards, that would be my
advice. I always followed that method with Mr. Brown.

MRS. THOM. You were consistent to the end. You got what you wanted
when your husband died, and you fought his will afterwards. Well,
we don’t follow the methods of the so-called feminine women in
putting forward the cause. We don’t wheedle for our rights. We
demand them.

MRS. BROWN. But if you can’t enforce your demands, what do you do
then?

MRS. THOM. We will follow the example of the Roman women who, when
unjust laws were enacted restricting the cost of their wearing
apparel and jewelry, withdrew to the hill outside of the city, and
stayed away from Rome until the men yielded and let them wear what
they chose.

MRS. TILSBURY. If the men won’t give us the vote, we women will all
go to Paris and stay there until they grant it. How lovely!

MRS. BROWN. What will you live on in Paris if the men refuse to
send funds? The bankers are all men still, my dear.

MRS. THOM. It shows that you have not seriously studied the
subject, Mrs. Brown, or you would not make such foolish remarks.
There is nothing to prevent women from becoming bankers.

MRS. BROWN. Except that they haven’t the gold.

MRS. THOM. They can melt their jewelry. It would be better than
wearing it like a bought Circassian slave.

MRS. BROWN. Well, I think that when all the other women go to
Paris, I shall stay in New York. It would be rather nice to be the
only woman in New York with all the bankers.

MRS. TILSBURY. Don’t think you will be the only one to have that
bright thought, Imogene; you will probably find plenty of other
women staying behind to keep you company.

MRS. THOM. I regret to say it, Mrs. Brown, but women like you are
the drag on the wheel of progress.

MRS. BROWN. Well, that is better than to be a broken tire, Mrs.
Thom; the wheels stop altogether then.

MRS. THOM. A broken tire? I do not understand what you are trying
to say.

MRS. BROWN. Why, Mr. Becker says——

MRS. THOM. I am not interested in what Mr. Becker says. Women who
act as phonographs for men are not in my line. Good-bye, Mrs.
Tilsbury. I will come in to see Mildred in a day or two. Don’t
forget about the check, please. To my order, Mary Henrietta Thom.

MRS. TILSBURY. As President of the Association.

MRS. THOM. If there is room. It isn’t necessary. (MRS. THOM _goes
out, bowing stiffly to_ MRS. BROWN.)

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh dear, she has made Mildred give a larger sum than
ever before. I don’t know what to do—it is a perfect shame.

MRS. BROWN. Start Mildred on something else. You have had enough of
women’s rights.

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, but everything costs. All the “causes” are
expensive. It doesn’t make any difference whether they are
charitable, socialistic, political, or artistic, they are all in
need of funds. So many appeals come every day that I have been
obliged to buy a bigger scrap-basket and the ash-man has raised
his price. He says old paper is of no use to him unless we have a
currency reform.

MRS. BROWN. Well, a husband would be more expensive still.

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, to support a husband in a style he has not been
accustomed to is very expensive. Poor Mildred, I don’t see what I
shall do.

MRS. BROWN. I hope you admired the way I carried off Mr. Van Tousel.

MRS. TILSBURY. Well, I don’t know. I thought from the expression on
your face when Mrs. Thom and I came back from seeing Mildred that
you had been flirting more seriously with Mr. Becker. He is not at
all dangerous because he holds such a low opinion about the ability
of women, but Mr. Van Tousel is wriggling his way straight into
Mildred’s heart with his pretended interest in “the cause.”

MRS. BROWN. I must confess I like Mr. Becker best. He is more of
a man and therefore more manageable. Besides there is Mr. Van
Tousel’s mother. She is vice-president in so many societies that
she might want to be president in her son’s house.

MRS. TILSBURY. I wasn’t thinking about your marrying one of them,
Imogene.

MRS. BROWN. I know you were not, but I was. I can’t marry Mr. Van
Tousel, I am afraid, not even for your sake, Josephine, but don’t
worry about him. I do not believe he can ever win Mildred. She is
too sensible to be attracted by him. Mr. Becker is the dangerous
man. Unlike seeks unlike, you know. I will do what I can to change
Mr. Becker’s thoughts, but you must help me. Ask us to dinner
together again.

MRS. TILSBURY. Did you notice how that Slavinsky girl made eyes at
Mr. Van Tousel? She is a horribly bold girl.

MRS. BROWN. Yes, she will probably keep him busy. Now, you have
cleared the field of two suitors in one afternoon, but what will
you do if another man turns up? I can’t divorce Mr. Becker and
start in on some one else in order to protect Mildred; besides that
would leave Mr. Becker free and open to consolation.

MRS. TILSBURY. Oh dear, I don’t know what I shall ever do. I am
worried to death with the complications that have arisen in this
house recently. Here is the cook striking because she says women
are imposed upon in a country where they are not allowed to vote.
She is going out to California, since the franchise has been given
to women there, for she says that although she voted before she
left her home in Norway, she is afraid she will forget how if she
doesn’t keep in practice.

MRS. BROWN. Why, I did not know that one could forget how to vote.
I thought it was like swimming, once learned always remembered. I
have known men who have not voted for years because they forgot to
register or wanted to play golf on election day or some other silly
reason, and then suddenly they would vote again because they said
it was an election that was important for the business interests of
the country. They never seemed to forget how to vote.

MRS. TILSBURY. Helma says it is the same as her cooking. If she
doesn’t make a dish every day or two she loses the knack of it.
George complains awfully when she gives us the same thing too
often, but what can I do? Helma says, too, that she wants to reach
California before the next presidential election because she wishes
to write home how she helped to elect a President of the great
United States.

MRS. BROWN. Well, you can’t mind her leaving if Mr. Tilsbury is
growing tired of her cooking.

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes I do; the next one will probably be worse.
Katy is going away too. She is going to marry right away because
her intended says that if she stays any longer in this house of
insurgents, he won’t marry her at all! Mrs. Thom is working
Mildred for all she is worth, and you are flirting with Mr. Becker
instead of Mr. Van Tousel. George will be so cross when he hears it
all. Everything seems to be in a muddle.

MRS. BROWN. Don’t be so discouraged. I must go now, but I will
run in to-morrow and we will try and arrange something. Perhaps
you might get Mildred interested in collecting postal cards. That
would be a cheap pursuit, unless it was discovered that the ancient
Egyptians used them and you had to pay a fabulous price for a
postal card from Cleopatra to Mark Antony encrusted with pearls.

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, come to-morrow, Imogene; perhaps you can help me.

MRS. BROWN. Good-bye, dear. Cheer up.


    (MRS. BROWN _picks up Cochon and goes out. Curtain_.)




                              ACT III


    _Library at the_ TILSBURYS’. MR. TILSBURY _at one end reading
    a newspaper_, MRS. TILSBURY _at the other, with a pad and
    pencil making sketches at random_.

KATY. (_Announcing_ MRS. BROWN.)

MRS. BROWN. (_Enters, dressed in automobile costume._) How do you
do? I know it isn’t time to start yet on our automobile ride, but I
came early on purpose, because I wanted to have a little chat with
Josephine. Now, Mr. Tilsbury, you go back to your newspaper and
don’t listen to what we say.

MR. TILSBURY. Hats and gowns, I suppose. No, I won’t listen to you,
Mrs. Brown. I am reading the President’s Message.

MRS. BROWN. Oh, I didn’t know he had sent one. Was it a wireless?

MR. TILSBURY. Well, most people seem to think it indicates
wire-pulling.

MRS. BROWN. Dear me, how interesting. Come over here on the sofa,
Josephine. I want you to tell me all about them.

MRS. TILSBURY. About whom?

MRS. BROWN. Why about Mr. Becker and Mr. Van Tousel, of course.

MRS. TILSBURY. You know as much about them as I do. They are both
after Mildred because of her money, and they keep running here all
the time. They seem nice enough men otherwise.

MRS. BROWN. They are too old for Mildred.

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, but all the young men and boys are scared off
by her seriousness and rights of women ideas, but old birds you
know are harder to frighten away. They think that if a marriage
sometimes reforms a man, it generally transforms a woman into the
stereotyped wife, and that as soon as Mildred is married she will
settle down. (_Goes on drawing._)

MRS. BROWN. What are you doing?

MRS. TILSBURY. I was trying to design a cellar decoration.

MRS. BROWN. I thought they were generally white-washed, but of
course living in an apartment, it is so long since I have thought
about a cellar or a roof that I am not up to the latest fads.

MRS. TILSBURY. The Committee on Art of the Unseen Blushers were so
struck with my picture of the street cleaner that they have asked
me to submit to them some plans for decorating cellars.

MRS. BROWN. That doesn’t sound very complimentary. Cellars are so
dark that no one will see your work.

MRS. TILSBURY. On the contrary, a great many people will see it.
It is for the elevation of furnace men and the men who put away
the coal. It is to give them a sense of the beautiful and an
appreciation of the artistic. Spending so much of their time in
dark hideous cellars, they lose so much of the higher life that it
is really the duty of rich householders to remember these poor men
who have been so long neglected and try to make the scene of their
daily tasks more in harmony with their own luxurious drawing-rooms.
I have been so happy this week working over these designs, for I
have felt that I was doing good to others, and at the same time
that I was indulging myself in my beloved art.

MRS. BROWN. And you have been neglecting Mildred?

MRS. TILSBURY. Not at all. She has been feeling rather tired as a
result of the parade. She did not even go to the Suffragist’s Tea
that Mrs. Thom gave yesterday.

MRS. BROWN. And Mr. Becker and Mr. Van Tousel? What have you done
about them?

MRS. TILSBURY. She has refused to come down to see either of them
because of headaches.

MRS. BROWN. Do you suppose that what that little Slavinsky girl
said about Mr. Becker was true?

MRS. TILSBURY. What did she say?

MRS. BROWN. Don’t you remember? She said she saw him at the theatre
with a lady friend.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_Indifferently._) Oh, very likely, it is true. Men
are like the moon, they never show but one side of their surface
to the world of women. I am going to put a moon up in this corner.
Would you make it full or three-quarters?

MRS. BROWN. They show enough of their other side after they are
married.

MRS. TILSBURY. Don’t marry them then. I think I will make this a
new moon. It is more suggestive of a bright future, and circles are
so difficult to draw.

MRS. BROWN. Josephine, you are positively unkind. Here I have done
everything to protect Mildred from Mr. Becker and Mr. Van Tousel
and now that I have succeeded so well that she is too piqued
to receive either of them, you won’t help me by giving me some
definite information about them. You don’t care for anything but
that old drawing.

MRS. TILSBURY. I must present this to the committee to be passed
upon by Tuesday. You are unreasonable, Imogene. How can I find out
about Mr. Becker’s moral character?

MRS. BROWN. You could ask your husband.

MRS. TILSBURY. You know what men are. They never give each other
away to women.

MRS. BROWN. Yes, they always form a close corporation to keep each
other in and women form a close corporation to keep each other out.

MRS. TILSBURY. I suppose that that is an elemental instinct.
Primæval men as hunters were obliged to combine to overcome the
strength of their prey, and women as the hunted used to separate to
disperse their trails.

MRS. BROWN. I am sure I don’t care what the reason was. I will
leave that to Mrs. Thom. I only want to know if Mr. Becker is
unattached, and I can’t go around enquiring about him so I want you
to. A married woman ought to be able to find out everything from
her husband.

MRS. TILSBURY. I think it was Mrs. Thom whom I heard make that
reference to primitive man. She or some other Suffragist. She was
trying to urge the women to be more co-operative. Well, I will ask
George sometime if he knows anything about Mr. Becker’s private
life, but, for my own part, I like Mr. Van Tousel best, you know.
There’s the bell now. That must be he. I’ll go and put on my coat.

MRS. BROWN. Are they both coming this afternoon?

MRS. TILSBURY. No, only Mr. Van Tousel. Mr. Becker had another
engagement, but he is coming here later for tea.

                         (_Enter_ KATY _with a card on a salver_.)

MRS. TILSBURY. Who is it, Katy? Bring me the card. Mr. Edward
Melvin. I don’t know him. He must have come to the wrong house when
he intended calling on someone else. Take the card back to the
gentleman and tell him he has made a mistake.

KATY. He asked for Miss Tilsbury, ma’am. I thought she was here.
She must be in her room. I will take the card to her.

MRS. TILSBURY. But Miss Tilsbury can’t know him either, if I don’t.
There must be a mistake somewhere.

KATY. I think Miss Tilsbury knows him, ma’am. He has been here
every day this week.

MRS. TILSBURY. What! And you never told me.

KATY. He never asked for you, ma’am. He always asked for Miss
Mildred.

MRS. TILSBURY. But Miss Tilsbury’s friends are mine.

KATY. You just said you didn’t know him, ma’am; besides you were
out a-playin’ Bridge every afternoon.

MR. TILSBURY. You do not seem to have been a very careful
chaperone, Josephine. Who is this man?

MRS. TILSBURY. I don’t know. I never heard of him. Every one seems
to have conspired to deceive me. (_To_ KATY _severely_.) Tell Mr.
Melvin that Miss Tilsbury is out.

MRS. BROWN. Would that be wise, Josephine? If he has been here
every day this week, things must have gone pretty far. You don’t
want to create opposition.

MR. TILSBURY. Melvin! What Melvin is that? Bring the card here,
Katy. Edward Melvin, Harmony Club. Why he must be the president of
the Cornering Trust Company. I can’t afford to have him turned out
of the house. He’s a very strong man. You must treat him politely,
Josephine.

MRS. TILSBURY. What am I to do? It’s one minute I must play the
dragon and keep men away from Mildred, and the next minute that I
must treat a man politely because he is of importance. I can’t ask
men here to dinner and then put poison in their food.

MRS. BROWN. Never mind, dear. Let him come up here. I’ll help you
out. He must be a better _parti_ than Mr. Becker. I’ll try my
fascinations on him.

MRS. TILSBURY. If he has been here so often as Katy says, I am
afraid that Mildred’s fascinations are the only ones that will
appeal to him. Oh, dear, it is dreadful to be a stepmother. One
never knows what a child may have inherited from either father or
mother, while in the case of one’s own children, one at least knows
if they take after oneself.

MRS. BROWN. Or if they don’t. It is as likely to be one way as the
other. But come, have him up. Let us see the Romeo.

MRS. TILSBURY. I must speak to Mildred first. Katy, ask Miss
Tilsbury to come here. I must find out how she met him and what it
all means.

MRS. BROWN. Be careful. Don’t make a martyr of her.

                                               (MILDRED _enters_.)

MILDRED. What is it, Josephine? Katy said you wanted to speak to me.

MRS. TILSBURY. Who is this Mr. Melvin who has come to see you.
Where did you meet him?

MILDRED. Oh, is he here? (_She starts to leave the room._)

MRS. TILSBURY. One minute, please. Tell us first where you met him.

MILDRED. He said papa would know him.

MR. TILSBURY. I know him in a business way but not socially. Tell
us where you ran across him, Mildred. Why have you kept this
acquaintance so secret?

MILDRED. Why, I haven’t kept it secret. Josephine knew all about
it. He’s the man who saw me home the day of the parade.

MRS. TILSBURY. That man, but you didn’t tell me he had been to call.

MILDRED. I have not had a chance. You have been so busy with your
painting in the morning and your bridge in the afternoon. I have
not seen you alone, but I must go, I must not keep Mr. Melvin
waiting any longer.

MRS. TILSBURY. Wouldn’t it be better to send for him to come here
and let him meet your father. You forget, Mildred, that you are an
heiress and that you must not form acquaintances on the street.

MILDRED. Mr. Melvin doesn’t know I am an heiress.

MRS. TILSBURY. Every one knows it. Men make a business of knowing
how much money a girl has. They have it printed in a little book
like a time-table, “Bradshaw’s” they call it. Only after a girl’s
name instead of putting the time the train arrives, they state the
amount of her present fortune and the next stop is represented by
her future expectations, and “discontinued” means, she has married
some one else. All the men carry pocket editions of this book with
them so as to avoid mistakes.

MILDRED. I do not think that Mr. Melvin is attracted by my money.
He wouldn’t stoop to read such a book as you describe.

MRS. TILSBURY. You have very likely told him yourself that you are
an heiress. You are so used to the position.

MILDRED. Oh, I did. I told him about my subscription to the D. D.’s
and about mamma’s leaving me all the money and only her portrait to
papa. Do you really think he only wants me for my money? He seemed
so high-minded and so much in love. Oh, what shall I do?

MRS. TILSBURY. All men are alike. They are all looking for money
when they think of marriage. Mrs. Brown can tell you that.

MRS. BROWN. Yes, Mildred. I have not had a single offer of marriage
since I became a widow and that was six months ago, just because
the late Mr. Brown made a most unkind will and left all his money
to his cousins if I married again. All the judges upheld the will.
They had probably made their own similar. They would establish
the suttee if they could. Never mind, dear, think how splendid it
will be when you have won the ballot for women and we have lady
judges. Mrs. Thom will make a fine judge. The men will never get
a favorable decision from her. Meanwhile, until that happy day
arrives, you are far better off living here in this peaceful home
with your father and Josephine than you would be married to an
adventurer.

KATY. What shall I say to the gentleman, ma’am?

MRS. TILSBURY. I had forgotten he was here. Well, ask him to come
up to this room. It will be better to have him meet your father,
Mildred.

                                                (KATY _goes out_.)

MILDRED. He always enquires after papa.

MRS. TILSBURY. He is afraid to meet him probably.

MILDRED. Josephine, you are unjust. He is not at all the kind of
man you seem to think he is. I am sure he is not a fortune hunter.
He has lots of money of his own.

             (_Enter_ MELVIN _just before she finishes speaking_.)

MR. MELVIN. What do you know about fortune hunters, Miss Tilsbury?

MILDRED. Nothing whatsoever, Mr. Melvin. They only trouble my
stepmother. Let me introduce her, Mrs. Tilsbury, Mr. Melvin, and
our friend Mrs. Brown. I think you said you had met my father.

    (MELVIN _bows to_ MRS. BROWN _and_ MRS. TILSBURY, _while_ MR.
    TILSBURY _comes forward and shakes hands with him_.)

MR. TILSBURY. How do you do, Melvin?

MR. MELVIN. Glad to see you again, Tilsbury. How are you feeling
to-day, Miss Tilsbury, quite rested?

MR. MELVIN. Did your daughter tell you, Mrs. Tilsbury, that she is
educating me in the principles of Woman Suffrage?

MRS. BROWN. (_Aside._) Another Mr. Van Tousel.

MRS. TILSBURY. No, she has never told me anything about you, Mr.
Melvin.

MRS. BROWN. Has she succeeded yet in convincing you of its
importance?

MR. MELVIN. No, it will be a slow process, I am afraid, but she has
declared she will not give it up easily.

MRS. BROWN. She has great success with her other delinquent pupils,
so she naturally feels encouraged to try to convert you.

MR. MELVIN. Here is the little book you loaned me.

MILDRED. Isn’t it splendid?

MRS. BROWN. What book is that?

MILDRED. It is called, _How Women will Use the Ballot to Extend
Home Influence_. It is written by Sophie Slavinsky with a preface
by Mrs. Thom.

MR. MELVIN. The English of the author might be improved upon.

MILDRED. But Miss Slavinsky is a foreigner. Wouldn’t you like to
take it to read, Mrs. Brown?

MRS. BROWN. No, thank you. I really have no time to read. Why, I
am so behind in society news even that I asked my maid to read me
Urban Utterances this morning through the keyhole while I took
my shower. I was going to lunch and I was afraid I wouldn’t
understand a word of the conversation if I didn’t study up
beforehand.

MRS. TILSBURY. My manicure usually keeps me posted upon what is
going on. She seems to know all the gossip about every one.

MRS. BROWN. The masseuse I had last winter when I was prostrated
after Mr. Brown’s death was like that, but she found out such
surprising things about people and excited me so much that the
doctor stopped her coming. I used to lie awake all night after a
massage instead of sleeping better as I was supposed to do.

MR. MELVIN. Are you not going to lend me another book, Miss
Tilsbury?

MILDRED. I am afraid you are not sufficiently appreciative.

MR. MELVIN. I assure you my mind is open to conviction, only I
don’t find Miss Slavinsky’s book convincing. You are not going to
stop my education so soon as this surely. Backward and defective
pupils are the most considered in these progressive times.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_Speaking aside to_ MRS. BROWN.) Do something. He
is making love to her before our very eyes.

MRS. BROWN. Here I go to the rescue. I did not know that Miss
Slavinsky wrote books. I thought her vocation was to usher at the
theatre.

MILDRED. That is what she is compelled to do, to support life, but
her books are the expression of her soul.

MR. MELVIN. Are you so loyal to all your friends, Miss Tilsbury?

MILDRED. When I believe in them. I wish you could meet Sophie and
then you would see for yourself what a splendid girl she is. She is
coming for tea at five o’clock. Won’t you stay?

MR. MELVIN. Thank you. I should be very glad to.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_Aside._) And it is just striking three now. Two
hours before tea.

KATY. (_Announcing._) Mr. Van Tousel!

                                        (MR. VAN TOUSEL _enters_.)

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Oh, Mrs. Tilsbury, I am so afraid I have kept you
waiting, but I waited for my mother to bring me around in the
carriage. I meet that Slavinsky girl so often passing the house
that I have become quite anxious about going out alone. (_He turns
towards_ MILDRED.) How is the champion of her sex this morning. How
do you do, Mrs. Brown? Hello, Melvin. Hello, Tilsbury.

MR. MELVIN. How are you, Van Tousel? I am afraid I am keeping you,
Mrs. Tilsbury. You have an engagement.

MRS. TILSBURY. We were going for a motor ride, Mr. Melvin, to see
the line of war-ships in the North River.

MR. TILSBURY. I’ll put on my overcoat. It’s time we started.

                                                  (_He goes out._)

MRS. TILSBURY. Mr. Tilsbury and I want to thank you, Mr. Melvin,
for your kindness in bringing Mildred home the day of the parade,
but we tell her that although in this case, of course, everything
was all right, she ought not to be quite so ready to trust a
stranger.

MR. MELVIN. I am afraid that she only had a choice between my
taxicab and an ambulance that day, Mrs. Tilsbury, and the doctor in
the ambulance would have been a stranger.

MRS. TILSBURY. She might have telephoned to us.

MILDRED. Why, Josephine, I was too dizzy headed to telephone.
Everything was going round and round.

MRS. TILSBURY. Well, Mr. Melvin might have telephoned then, but of
course, I suppose you did the best you could, Mr. Melvin. Only it
seems a rather curious affair.

MRS. BROWN. I must go and put on my coat and pick up Cochon. I left
him in the hall with the fur coats. I was afraid to bring him near
the fire. Dear little thing, how he does love a motor ride. He
grunts all the way.

                                                 (_She goes out._)

MR. MELVIN. Good-bye, Mrs. Tilsbury, I am delighted to have met
you. I hope you will enjoy your ride, Miss Tilsbury.

MILDRED. I am not going.

MRS. TILSBURY and MR. VAN TOUSEL. Not going! Why not?

MILDRED. No, I have a cold. I told you I wasn’t going at luncheon.
Don’t you remember, Josephine? Won’t you stay and talk to me, Mr.
Melvin?

MR. MELVIN. I should be delighted to, if you are sure it won’t make
your cold worse.

MRS. TILSBURY. Why, I didn’t know you had a cold, Mildred. You said
at luncheon that you had a headache.

MILDRED. Well, that was brought about by the cold.

MRS. TILSBURY. You look so well. I thought it had passed off.


    (_Re-enter_ MRS. BROWN _in fur coat with_ COCHON _under her
    arm_.)


MRS. BROWN. Doesn’t Cochon match my coat nicely?

MRS. TILSBURY. Mildred is not going with us. She says she has a
cold.

MRS. BROWN. Oh, come along, Mildred. The fresh air will do your
cold good.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Yes, Miss Mildred. Don’t disappoint us in this way.
Melvin will come and see you another time.

MRS. BROWN. Why won’t Mr. Melvin come with us?

MR. MELVIN. Thank you. I can’t very well. I have an engagement for
four o’clock.

MRS. BROWN. I thought you were going to stay here for tea at five
o’clock.

MR. MELVIN. I was coming back to tea to meet Miss Slavinsky.


    (MR. TILSBURY _returns dressed in fur coat and goggles_.)


MR. TILSBURY. Come along, Josephine. Are you not ready yet? The
days are growing so short that we ought to start right away if we
are going to return before dark.

MRS. BROWN. We are waiting for Mildred.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_Decidedly._) If you do not feel well enough to go,
Mildred, I will stay at home with you. Perhaps we had best send for
the doctor.

MILDRED. Oh, don’t stay at home for me, Josephine. I shall be all
right.

MR. MELVIN. I will take good care of her, Mrs. Tilsbury. Don’t
worry.

MRS. BROWN. (_Aside._) No doubt he will. (_To_ MILDRED.) Let me
stay with you, Mildred dear.

MILDRED. Oh, no, Mrs. Brown. Cochon would be so disappointed.

MR. TILSBURY. Come, come, Josephine, we can go and be back in less
time than you take to argue about it.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_To_ MRS. BROWN.) Men are so dense. What shall I do?

MRS. BROWN. Go and come back.

MRS. TILSBURY. I guess that will be best. (_Making a last effort._)
Are you sure you won’t go, Mildred? You wouldn’t feel cold sitting
between Mrs. Brown and me on the back seat and this is your last
chance you know. The fleet sails away to-morrow.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. You oughtn’t to miss seeing it, Miss Mildred. It is
an international event.

MILDRED. But what would become of Cochon? He will have to sit
between you and Mrs. Brown, Josephine.

MRS. TILSBURY. We will leave Cochon here.

MILDRED. Oh, no! That would be a pity. He enjoys automobiling so
much. Do hurry, Josephine. Here, let me hold your coat for you.

MR. TILSBURY. (_From below._) Josephine, are you coming? It will be
dark before we start.

MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, dear, we’re all ready. Good-bye, Mildred. Take
good care of yourself. Good-bye, Mr. Melvin.

ALL. Good-bye, good-bye. (_Exit all but_ MILDRED _and_ MELVIN.)

MR. MELVIN. (_Softly._) At last they have all gone. Do they always
bother you like this?

MILDRED. Yes, Josephine fusses over me all the time. Fortunately
this week she has been busy over her drawing and I have been a
little free to do what I chose. Oh, what am I saying?

MR. MELVIN. You were unconsciously paying me an indirect compliment
which it was very sweet to me to hear.

MILDRED. I have done lots of things that I wanted to do this week,
Mr. Melvin. You weren’t the only thing.

MR. MELVIN. Am I a thing?

MILDRED. Well, people then. I have seen lots of people.

MR. MELVIN. (_Suspiciously._) Men?

MILDRED. Men and women both. (_To change the subject._) I don’t
know but what you were right about the Daughters of the Danaïdes,
Mr. Melvin.

MR. MELVIN. Right how?

MILDRED. About their drawing water in a sieve. I am beginning to
be very discouraged. We do not seem to accomplish anything. There
doesn’t seem to be any prospect of our ever really accomplishing
anything, and sometimes I am not sure that the others care; even
Mrs. Thom seems to enjoy the excitement more than she is concerned
about results.

MR. MELVIN. Why, do you know, I am beginning to be of just the
opposite opinion and to believe that societies like the Daughters
of the Danaïdes do a lot of good in teaching women to organize and
to think and to prepare themselves eventually for the vote.

MILDRED. Then we are just as far apart in agreeing as ever—since we
have both turned around.

MR. MELVIN. Not at all, for we have each had two points of view now
and can sympathize better with each other.

MILDRED. I am so glad to talk with you. I feel so lonely. Josephine
and I have so little in common and Mrs. Thom and Sophie have such
different ideas from mine. I am afraid I am not strong minded.

MR. MELVIN. Don’t be. Talk to me all you want. I think you have
beautiful ideas.

MILDRED. They are very foolish ones I am afraid.

MR. MELVIN. Not to me. Mildred, marry me and then we can talk over
these matters more intimately as men and women should, and then we
could help each other to understand all these questions better.

MILDRED. I never thought of this.

MR. MELVIN. No, but I have and I want you very much dear. I can
teach you to carry water in a sieve in a more scientific way than
the old Danaïdes ever thought of.

MILDRED. How is that? Will you stop up the holes?

MR. MELVIN. No, that would take too long. I have a better plan. We
will freeze the water into ice.

MILDRED. If I married you what would papa and Josephine do without
me? I have all the money, you know, and support the house.

MR. MELVIN. That could be arranged. I have plenty of money for
both you and me and I am making more all the time. The Cornering
Trust is in splendid condition.

MILDRED. And mamma’s portrait, I should hate to leave it. It is my
Guardian Angel, you know.

MR. MELVIN. I have a splendid idea. We’ll buy the portrait. We will
pay an enormous price for it and establish a record value. Then we
will have the picture and your father will have enough to live on.
He would be willing to part with the portrait, wouldn’t he?

MILDRED. I think so, to me at any rate. It is by Madrazo. It is
really a valuable painting.

MR. MELVIN. Then, Mildred, dear, please do not try to think of any
more objections. I should try very hard to make you happy.

MILDRED. We have known each other for so short a time.

MR. MELVIN. That is very true. We must begin to grow better
acquainted at once. (_He takes her hand in his._) Suppose I give
you a few lessons in how to fall in love in exchange for those
lessons in the principles of women’s rights.

MILDRED. I am afraid you are not very serious.

MR. MELVIN. Forgive me, sweetheart, if I seem frivolous. I have
never felt more serious in my life. (_Puts his arm around her._)


    (_Enter_ MR. _and_ MRS. TILSBURY, _followed by_ MRS. BROWN
    _who holds a handkerchief to her eyes and is assisted to walk
    by_ MR. VAN TOUSEL.)


MRS. TILSBURY. A tire broke and we were obliged to come home in a
trolley car.

MR. TILSBURY. I don’t see what was the matter with that tire. It
was only put on last week.

MRS. BROWN. And Cochon is killed.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. And my fur coat has been stolen.

ALL. (_Seeing_ MELVIN _and_ MILDRED.) Oh!

MILDRED. Mr. Melvin and I are engaged, papa.

MR. TILSBURY. Engaged without asking my consent! I forbid it.

MR. MELVIN. (_Understanding his thoughts._) I was just going to ask
it, Tilsbury. I am going to take two treasures away from you at
once,—your daughter and your late wife’s portrait. Mildred wants it
and I will give you $200,000 for it.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_Aside._) Thank Heaven, I shall not be obliged to
go to any more Woman Suffrage meetings.

MR. TILSBURY. Melvin, this is a surprise to me. You must let me
think it over.

MRS. TILSBURY. (_Aside._) And to get rid of the old portrait too.
The whole thing is too good to be true. (_To_ MR. TILSBURY.) Don’t
keep Mr. Melvin in suspense, George. The cruel parent is out of
fashion nowadays.

MILDRED. Dear papa, Edward and I are going to be so happy together.

MR. TILSBURY. (_Aside._) Two hundred thousand dollars and my
commissions as trustee. Melvin has his hands so full now, he won’t
want to bother with the care of Mildred’s little fortune. (_To_
MELVIN.) Melvin, I will entrust my daughter to your hands. I am
sure you are worthy of her. As to the portrait—bitter as it is
to me to part with this last token of my late wife’s affection
bequeathed to me in her will, yet for Mildred’s sake I will give
you her dear mother’s portrait for $200,000.

KATY. (_Announcing._) Mrs. Thom.

                                             (MRS. THOM _enters_.)

MRS. BROWN. Two broken tires in one day and Cochon dead. It is too
much. (_Sobs._)

MRS. THOM. I was so disappointed that you couldn’t come to pour tea
at the Suffrage reception yesterday. I am so sorry you have been
ill, dear child. I hope you are feeling better to-day. (_Looks at
her suspiciously._)

MILDRED. Yes, indeed, Mrs. Thom, I am quite recovered, thank
you. I hated to fall out the last minute, but I had such a bad
headache that I could not have carried the tea in the sieve—the tea
strainer, I mean.

MRS. THOM. Well, you must come next week. The teas are to be held
at the Club-house every Friday during the month. The cups all have
“Votes for Women” on them, and I charge fifty cents for a cup of
tea and the purchaser carries the cup home. It is a very good
arrangement, for we make quite a little sum in our sales and the
cups remind the purchasers of the cause.

MRS. TILSBURY. I am afraid Mildred will not have much time for
Woman Suffrage teas at present, Mrs. Thom. She has just become
engaged to Mr. Melvin.

MRS. THOM. Mildred engaged! Why, when did that happen?

MRS. TILSBURY. About an hour ago. It is a result of your Woman
Suffrage Parade. Mr. Melvin saw Mildred home in a taxi cab on that
day, you remember.

MRS. THOM. Dear child, I hope you will be happy, but knowing from
my own case and from that of many of my friends how unequal are
the risks that men and women assume in the married state, I can
only tremble for your future. Of course your fiancé believes in the
cause, otherwise you would not have accepted him.

MILDRED. Oh, Josephine, how could you! We were not going to
announce our engagement just yet.

MRS. TILSBURY. I thought you were announcing it rather emphatically
when we came in.

MILDRED. I want to introduce you to Mr. Melvin, Mrs. Thom. He
has just finished reading your preface to Sophie’s book and is
delighted to have the opportunity to tell you how much he enjoyed
it.

MR. MELVIN. I am glad to meet you, Mrs. Thom, but I cannot claim
your friendship on false pretences. I regret to say I skipped
your preface. It is the one thing I have learned from the Shavian
philosophy, but I will ask Mildred to tell me about it sometime.

MRS. THOM. Of course your fiancé has signed the petition, Mildred?

MR. MELVIN. No, Mrs. Thom, I do not believe sufficiently in “the
cause” to be willing to sign the petition.

MRS. THOM. Do you know what petition I mean?

MR. MELVIN. Certainly: the petition to the State Legislature for
the Enfranchisement of Women Citizens.

MRS. THOM. You know about the petition and yet you refuse to
subscribe to it! Mildred, dear, this is a question of your future
happiness. I might almost say of your future safety. Reflect
before it is too late what it means to put yourself in the power of
a man who believes in the continued enslavement of women.

MR. MELVIN. Oh, Mrs. Thom, you are too severe. If I am in no hurry
to see women voting and a reduplication of the ignorant vote, I
refuse to be called a Bluebeard. I believe that noble women are
inherent queens above the vote, not below it.

MRS. THOM. In England they class women with children and
lunatics in barring them from political rights. In New York, the
Constitution extends the vote to any male citizen over twenty-one
years old regardless of whether he is sane or insane. Even a
lunatic if he be a male is held superior to a woman.

MRS. BROWN. That’s because so many men are a little queer. If votes
could be challenged for craziness as well as for illegal residence
the watchers at the polls would never finish their tasks.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. I want to wish you every happiness, Miss Mildred,
but like Mrs. Thom, I feel a little uncertain about your future. A
woman who is so strong on the subject of Woman Suffrage as you are
ought to marry a man who could sympathize with her.

MILDRED. Oh, but Edward does sympathize with me. He has been
sympathizing with me all the week. I never met any one who
understood me so well.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Perhaps I should have said sympathize in “the
cause.” A man and a woman who believe in the same cause when joined
together can do so much for its advancement.

MILDRED. I will convert him after we are married.

MRS. THOM. It will be too late then. Conversion after marriage is
like putting yeast in bread after it is baked. It cannot raise the
fallen.


    (_Enter_ SOPHIE SLAVINSKY _and_ BECKER. _The latter a little
    shamefaced._)


KATY. (_Announcing._) Mr. and Mrs. Becker!

MILDRED. Oh, Sophie, I am so glad to see you. I want to be the
first to tell you of my engagement to Mr. Melvin, since Josephine
has already let the cat out of the bag.

SOPHIE. How lovely! Let me kiss you. Marriage is true happiness for
a woman. We must have a little talk together, you and I. (_Turning
to others._) How do you all do, you dear good people.

MRS. TILSBURY. How do you do, Miss Slavinsky.

SOPHIE. Mrs. Becker, please, Mrs. Theodore Halowell Becker. We have
just been married by the Mayor and I stopped here to see Mildred
before we start on the honeymoon. _Nicht Wahr_, dearest? (_To
Becker._)

MRS. THOM. You have married that man—that monster who tramples the
rights of women beneath his feet like worms in the dust!

SOPHIE. We have—what you call it?—swapped votes, like two men,
a Republican and a Democrat, when they want to go play golf on
election day. They two agree, not one will vote. Then everything is
cancelled. So Mr. Becker and me—he is a great big opponent to the
cause and I am a strong advocate. If we both keep quiet the result
is zero, see?

MRS. BROWN. Ah, yes, you and Mr. Becker have become two adjacent
hemispheres.

SOPHIE. (_After a slight pause._) Yes, every brain consists of
two hemispheres, and I am proud to be a hemisphere of Mr. Becker’s
great, big, splendid brain.

MILDRED. This is such a beautiful surprise. Sophie, dear, do tell
us how it all happened.

SOPHIE. Well, you see that day when Mr. Becker met me here, he
came to the theatre the next night to see if I really usher and he
bought his ticket so late he was obliged to take a way back and
sit down seat; almost under the—what do you call it?—oh, yes, the
undress circle where people wear their business clothes. Just as I
had shown him his place and had pushed down his seat and made him
comfortable, and had given him a programme, which he had forgot to
take, and was going to help him off with his overcoat, I happened
to look up, and there was a big pair of opera-glasses falling down
from the undress circle right towards his dear little bald spot,
as if it were a bull’s-eye, and I put out my arm and it hit my arm
instead of his head and made one great blue spot. It is there yet,
see. (_Bares arm._)

MILDRED. You saved Mr. Becker’s life and then he married you! How
romantic! It is just like Edward and me, only it was Edward that
saved my life that day of the Parade.

MR. BECKER. Pardon me, Miss Tilsbury, you women——

SOPHIE. Dear!

MR. BECKER. Except you, Sophie, you women all generalize from one
example. Sophie did probably save my life, but Mr. Melvin can
hardly be said to have saved yours.

SOPHIE. Is he not sweet? He has promised now whenever he says “you
women” to make of me an exception.

MILDRED. But go on with your story, Sophie. What happened next when
you had saved Mr. Becker’s head from the opera-glasses?

MRS. BROWN. Did the owner ever claim them?

SOPHIE. I don’t know. I returned them to the lost and found office.
Well, my arm was so hurted that I could not usher any more this
last week. How could I put out disorderly audiences with one arm
laid up in a sling? Well, Mr. Becker came to see me every day with
flowers and—well, love did the rest.

MILDRED. Well, dear Sophie, I am so glad you are happy.

MRS. THOM. I suppose we shall not see you at the tea on next Friday.

SOPHIE. No, we are going to Niagara, for our honeymoon. It is train
time now, Theodore, _nicht wahr_?

MR. BECKER. I think we should be starting. You women—except you,
Sophie—are so apt to miss trains.

SOPHIE. _Au revoir._ _Auf wiedersehen!_ See you later.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Good-bye. My congratulations, Becker.

                (_The_ BECKERS _leave after embraces and kisses_.)

MR. VAN TOUSEL. There but for the kindness of Providence goes Henry
Van Tousel.

MILDRED. Dear me, hasn’t this been a wonderful afternoon! Poor
little me engaged and Sophie married!

MR. MELVIN. It has been the most successful day of my life.

MRS. TILSBURY. Well, it is all the result of your Parade, Mrs.
Thom. The Parade seems to have been a more speedy matchmaker than a
dancing class.

MRS. THOM. I shall not stay here to be insulted.

MILDRED. Oh, Mrs. Thom, no one is insulting you. Don’t spoil
this beautiful day. Let me give you a cup of tea. I am going to
celebrate my engagement by giving a little gift to the cause.

MR. MELVIN. I will double it, Mrs. Thom.

MRS. BROWN. (_Aside._) It is probably the last.

MRS. THOM. Make the check out to me please, Mary Henrietta Thom.
We have no treasurer at present, and I am taking charge of the
donations. I won’t stay for tea, thank you. I have an engagement
and I know that you and Mr. Melvin have a lot to say to each other.
Good-bye, dear child. May you be happy. (_She kisses_ MILDRED,
_bows to the others, and goes_.)

MRS. BROWN. (_Aside to_ MRS. TILSBURY.) Well, there does not seem
to be any one left for me but Mr. Van Tousel and his vice-president
mother.

MRS. TILSBURY. Cheer up, dear, no one ever made a success out of a
vice-presidency except Roosevelt.

MRS. BROWN. Well, I will hope for the best. Mr. Van Tousel, I feel
so upset over Cochon’s death. I am afraid to go home alone. Will
you see me around the corner? It is not very far. The apartment
will be so lonesome without Cochon.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Certainly, I will see you home, Mrs. Brown. I am
coming in to call on you too. I have never been before because
somehow I could not reconcile my idea of you as a lovely woman with
a pig as a companion.

MRS. TILSBURY. Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Van Tousel.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. True, I had forgotten that tale.

MILDRED. How was Cochon killed, Mrs. Brown, or would it make you
feel too badly to tell me about it?

MRS. BROWN. He fell out of the automobile and was run over by an
automobile coming in the opposite direction. Oh dear.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Come, Mrs. Brown. Let me give you my arm.
Good-afternoon, Mrs. Tilsbury. Thank you for a delightful ride.
Best wishes, Miss Tilsbury, and to you, Melvin.

MRS. BROWN. Good-bye, Josephine. I will telephone in the morning.

MRS. TILSBURY. I think I know what it will be about. Good luck to
you, Imogene.

(MRS. BROWN _and_ MR. VAN TOUSEL _go out_.)

MILDRED. Is she going to have a funeral for Cochon?

MR. TILSBURY. No, she sold him to a butcher for twenty-five dollars
while Mr. Van Tousel went around the corner to get her sal volatile
at a chemist’s. Cochon was killed at a convenient place,—right
opposite a butcher’s shop. Then she closed at once with the people
in the other automobile for fifty dollars for all damages. Good
business woman, Mrs. Brown. Good friend for you, Josephine, but
she’ll do you some day.

MRS. TILSBURY. Well, as my duties as a chaperone seem to be over,
I think I shall return to my art. You will dine with us to-night,
will you not, Mr. Melvin? We shall be quite _en famille_.

MR. MELVIN. Thank you, I should like to very much.

MR. TILSBURY. Well, I am off to the Club. See you later, Melvin.

(MR. _and_ MRS. TILSBURY _go out_.)

MR. MELVIN. Hereafter I am going to change the war-cry to the
singular, and say, “Votes for one woman.”

MILDRED. And I shall say, “Votes for one man.”


                           (_Curtain._)




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE


  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
  corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
  the text and consultation of external sources.

  Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
  when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

  Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the
  text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

  Pg 43: ‘Do you members’ replaced by ‘Do your members’.

  Pg 60: ‘their boots backened’ replaced by ‘their boots blackened’.

  Pg 78: ‘Enter MELVIN . . . speaking.’ replaced by ‘(Enter MELVIN
  . . . speaking.)’.

  Pg 81: ‘MR. VAN TOUSEL enters.’ replaced by ‘(MR. VAN TOUSEL
  enters.)’.



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