And now I have to confess that I am the instigator-in-chief of the destruction of your property. You will be kind enough to reckon with _me_ if you do with anybody. We bid you good day and a God speed in the right direction." The ladies withdrew without being waved out. CHAPTER XVI. THE EFFECT OF RUTH'S SPEECH. Mere words can give but little idea of Ruth's speech. It was what would be called in military phrase of the "rapid-firing order." Her pretty brown eyes were ablaze with feeling. Every gesture struck home. The Golden Rule President encouraged her with nods and smiles. Lawyer Rattlinger was amused and interested. The ladies were effected to tears, while Schwarmer turned all sorts of colors--red being the predominant one. His face seemed full to bursting at times; but her final invocation steadied him a little and after the last lady had disappeared, he gasped out: "Well gentlemen, really and truly! What are we to do about a thing of this kind? I don't quite understand the ladies. They have such a sort of vascilating way--most assuredly they have." "Yes, but there's where the love comes in," said the President. He was humming a tune and twitching his ample fingers in a lively way as though they might be playing on a harp of a thousand strings. Then he sang out: "O! it's through the _women people_ we shall find the promised rest. The women, God bless them! They know what the town needs if the rest of us don't, Mr. Schwarmer, and they are going for it. You may as well capitulate--capitulate gracefully and give them a library." "And you, Rattlinger, I would like your view of it, most assuredly I would--that is, the legal view." "Certainly, you are welcome to my point of view both legal and experimental," replied Rattlinger. "I should say to begin with that the uprising is too respectable and tee-total to be ignored. Experimentally I know that a woman is the deuce for persistence when she once gets after a thing. I should say that when a whole army of them get on the war-path the library would have to come. Legally considered, you have not given a promissory note, but you have given them promissory words. There's a point of honor, you see." "Well, really, gentlemen, I have always intended to give a library or something of that kind, in the end, you know, but I don't fancy being forced to do it--prematurely, so to speak; and you can't blame me for _that_, most assuredly you can't." "No! No! Mr. Schwarmer," sang the President: "You're a free untrammeled soul An undivided atom within a mighty whole."