"I haven't took a bloomin' copper all the afternoon," she complained, looking pointedly after the lady who had just dropped a shilling in my box. I considered the wisdom of explaining that what I was doing was going to help her in the long run, but decided that under similar circumstances I should prefer a more practical and immediate evidence of good-will from any one who offered me such an explanation. For the worst of the long run, mean this what it may, is that it never, never runs. Luckily for our future relations, a gust of wind carried off a blue air-ball, and in the chase that followed I came off victorious, and was able to hand it to the owner with a disarming smile. She unbent slightly in return. "Dessay you find it chilly out here, not bein' used to it," she suggested, pulling the knot in the string tighter with her teeth. "What are they doin' it for? That's what I arst! What are they doin' it for?" said the lame newsboy in a slightly peevish tone. My agility in capturing the air-ball had made him sore, I think, though he had no reason to feel any envy on that score. Seeing the alertness and speed with which he dragged his useless limb after him when he came to show me anything uncomplimentary about the Suffragettes that happened to appear in his pink newspaper, I could but marvel at the thought of what he might have accomplished on two legs. One could only suppose that his agility, like the flower-lady's sympathy, was the result of a lifelong evasion of difficulties. The elderly gentleman who sold the penny Conservative paper knew why we were doing it. He never failed to wink joyously to his friends if a male elector stopped to argue across my money-box about the cause for which I was shaking it. "Doin' it to git theirselves 'usbands, that's what they're doin' it for," he would say conclusively, in denial of the usual contention of the anti-suffragist, that we are doing it because of our distaste for husbands. When the enemy attacked, my fellow-hawkers waited with grim anticipation for my replies. "Is not this a terrible condescension on your part?" asked one disapproving lady, putting up her lorgnette to read the inscription on the box. "Oh, I quite believe in your cause, but why do this sort of thing? How much better to get round the men another way!"