The suffragette walked between a little woman in a plush coat with a baby and a person who might have been a poetess, or a philosopher, or a Low Church missionary, but was certainly very earnest. The long brown streets swung by. The flares on the coster’s barrows anchored to the kerb, danced in the yellow air. A hum of barbaric voices, and the large firm pulse of many feet marching, made a background to the few clear curses and the fewer clearer blessings from the pavement. “I wish to Gawd my kiddie ’ed been a gel,” said the little mother beside the suffragette. “Bein’ a woman—mikes yer proud-like....” The suffragette put her chin up and laughed. “As a man, your kiddie’ll make you proud. There’s sure to be something splendid about a man whose mother was proud to be a woman.” “Men ...” said the little mother, with more alliteration than refinement, “are ... brute beasts.” “’Ere, draw it mild,” said the dock-hand, who was just in front. “There’s men, wytin’ for us, somewhere down the Delta wy now. Wytin’ to mike us yell an’ run, wytin’ to ’urt us—jus’ becos we was proud to be women.” “Waiting for us?” gasped the poetess. “Why—how dreadful.... I wasn’t told there would be any fighting.” “You might have known there would be,” said the suffragette. “You can’t assert facts without fighting for them.” The poetess, obviously wishing she had left such dangerous weapons as facts to themselves, gave a hoarse giggle, and said, “I declare, I’m quite frightened....” “It is frightening,” agreed the suffragette. “Not the bruises, but the stone-wallness of men. I’m always frightened by opposition that I can’t see through at all. I am frightened of Delta Street hooligans. I am also frightened in exactly the same way by a polite enemy. You go into the law courts, for instance, and watch those men wearing their wigs like haloes and their robes like saints’ armour——” “You do talk nice, miss,” said the little mother. “I wish you’d come down to the Brown Borough, an’ jaw my young man.” The suffragette, though a trifle damped, continued, “It isn’t that their arguments are strong, nobody minds that, but it’s that they don’t bother to have any arguments. Just like the hooligans, only in different words. It’s no more an argument than it is one between God and Satan. One side is established, the other doesn’t exist. It makes you see that to-morrow is never strong enough to fight to-day. It would take an angel to admit to-morrow as a fact at all, and unfortunately it’s men we’re up against.” “Then what’s the good of all this?” asked the poetess, who was naturally becoming more and more depressed. “Oh, a losing battle’s fine,” said the suffragette. “I’d rather wear a black eye than a wig, or a crown, any day.” “’Ear, ’ear,” said the dock-hand.