"Here they come," continued the lady with the handbills. "Just keep them going while I get rid of these, there's a dear! It doesn't matter what you say," she added consolingly, as she went towards two approaching women with outstretched hand and an ingratiating smile. "_Ah! ce sont les suffragettes!_" exclaimed one of these unexpectedly. "_Nous sommes des suffragistes françaises, nous aussi! Vive le féminisme!_" "Oh, how perfectly delightful!" said the English suffragist, beaming on them. "Do stop and listen. _Nous allons avoir un_--oh, bother! What is 'meeting'?--_un rendez-vous, mesdames!_" "_Tiens!_" gasped the French suffragists, as well they might. At this moment the speaker, her mind a blank concerning all the carefully prepared sentences she had been learning by heart for days, could be heard announcing that she would now call upon the other lady to address the meeting; and the crowd, increasing every minute, cheered inconsequently. "Well, there ain't much of her, but give 'er a chaunce!" remarked a wit, as the second speaker mounted the sugar-box. A small boy hitched up his trousers and moved off. "I shall turn into a woman if I stay here," he observed. "No such luck for you, my boy!" came the quick retort from the rickety platform, and the impressionable crowd grinned with appreciation. The speaker pounced upon her opportunity and began to sketch the history of Reform. She used long words purposely, so they made an instant show of listening, it being out of the question, of course, to allow that any woman, least of all a Suffragette, could talk over their heads. The astonishing statement that women in the past had enjoyed a certain measure of political power, was, however, too much for one youth. "Where did you git that from?" he shouted. "My friend has forgotten his history," said the speaker indulgently. "It is an historical fact----" The interrupter turned his back contemptuously on the sugar-box, and addressed the audience in a loud and overpowering voice. "Look at 'er!" he adjured them, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "History, she says! Believin' what she's towld in a book. Ain't that jest like a woman?" Having thus disposed of the facts of history, he went on to deal more largely with the question as a whole. "Pack o' women!" he snorted. "Why don't they stay at 'ome and mind the baby? Why don't they cook the old man's dinner? Why don't they----?" "This gentleman evidently thinks it is question time," struck in the real speaker with undisturbed composure. "Perhaps, when he reaches the age that will entitle him to use a vote, he will know more about the procedure of a political meeting----" "Well, you ain't got a vote yourself, anyhow!" said the incensed youth, turning round amid the laughter of the crowd to face the woman on the sugar-box, which, of course, was exactly what she wanted him to do.