"I don't. I discriminate against the unintelligent. You'll admit there's a difference? Also, allow me to remind you that democracy is not the ballot; it's a state of mind." "Very well!" Maitland retorted. "Make intelligence the qualification: the women put it over us every time! They are far more intelligent than men." "I'd like to hear you prove it." "That's easy! Girls can stay in school longer than boys, so they are better educated." "But I'm not talking about schooling!" Leighton broke in; "I mean just common sense as to functions of the ballot. Let women ask for an intelligence qualification, and I'll be the biggest kind of a suff! But while they don't know any more about what the ballot can and can't do, than to gas about its raising woman's wages--oh, Lord!" he ended, hopelessly. "Suffrage in itself is educating," Howard instructed him. Leighton nodded. "It ought to be. But I can't see that it has perceptibly educated our fish-gutter. Still, you'd like to meet his wife at the polls?" The suffragist hesitated: "When women get the vote, they'll change the election laws, and weed out the unfit." Leighton lifted despairing hands: "When you say things like that, I feel like putting my money on the suffs! Mait, get out of the cradle! Our grandfathers made a mess of it, by dealing out universal male suffrage; and our fathers made a worse mess in giving it to the male negro; now the women want to make asses of themselves, just as we did. They are always yapping about being our 'equals.' They _are_! They are as big fools as we are. Bigger, for they have the benefit of observing our blunders, and being able to avoid them--and they won't do it! Because Mr. Portugee has the ballot, Mrs. Portugee must have it, too. They say it wouldn't be 'fair' to leave her out. You'd think they were a parcel of schoolgirls! If women would ask for a limited suffrage, ask for the vote for my wife, so to speak--a vote for _any_ intelligent woman, cook or countess!--I'd hold up both hands, and so would most men." "It isn't practical." "Practical enough, if we wanted to do it. And think what we could accomplish--the intelligent men, _and_ the intelligent women! The people who buy and sell Mr. Portugee would be snowed under;--which is the reason the corrupt element in politics object to a limited suffrage for women! They need Mr. Portugee in their business, and rather than lose him, they'll take Mrs. P., too. So what's the use of talking? Votes for Women will come, in spite of all the antis in the land, for in this woman's scrimmage, though the antis have the charm, the suffragists have the brains; and brains always win, no matter how bad the cause! They'll get it--I'm betting that they'll get it in five years." "You ought to hear Miss Payton talk about it," Maitland said; "she'd floor you every time. She's got a mighty pretty cousin," he rambled off; "_she_ has charm." "Suffragist?"