I told Drusilla about her mother; but it did not move her. "It is mother's battle we are fighting as well as our own," she replied. "Women should hang together." "Not hang," I said: "it's not as bad as that." A-27 laughed, and Drusilla turned on him furiously. "Why should policemen be men?" she cried. "That's another injustice. If women have to be arrested, they ought to be arrested by their own sex." "I quite agree with you, miss," said the constable. "And so would all my mates, very heartily. Yes, and all our missuses too. It's no bean-feast taking a woman to the station, I can tell you. The police have their feelings as well as any one else, and they never feel so little like men as they do when they're apprehending a female offender. Now you, miss, as I was telling this gentleman here, came along quiet and peaceable; but do you think I was proud of having my hand on you? Not a bit of it. I could have sunk into the earth for shame. Votes for women I don't believe in, and never shall; but policewomen for women I would plump for." At this moment a messenger came to say that the magistrate was ready, and I had to leave Drusilla and enter the court. The hearing took only a short time. There were several offenders, some of whom had been in similar _mêlées_ before. They all refused to pay the fine and received varying sentences, as A-27 had foretold. Drusilla, however, was discharged with a caution, a result due partly to her pacific behaviour with her constable, and partly, I have no doubt, to her father's standing at the Bar; for although there may not be (as some aver) one law for the rich and one for the poor, there is certainly one law for a colleague and one for a stranger, and so there always will be. As Trist says, the human organism presents few attractions as a resting-place to the bacillus of impartiality. In discharging her (to her very obvious distress), the magistrate made some kind if antiquated remarks. He pointed out that there were other rights to be considered as well as the right to vote. There were, for example, the parents' right to be free from anxiety as to what their daughters were doing; the right to be exempted from such annoyance and grief as the imprisonment of their daughters would bring; and so forth. He meant well, but Drusilla was white with disagreement and indignation. "If every one thought about others like that," she said, on the way home, "there would be no progress whatever. Progress is based on disregard of old-fashioned feelings." (Where did she get that?) "True enough," I agreed. "But progress also comes from independence. I take it for granted that all those other brave ladies who have refused to pay their fines, and have gone to Holloway, have their own homes and incomes. They are in a position to defy the law. But where is your income? where is your home?"