'This fellow isn't half bad,' Stonor said to Lady John.
'But the Liberals, they'll promise you the earth and give you the whole o' nothin'.'
There were roars of approval. Liberal stock had sunk rather low in Trafalgar Square.
'Isn't it fun?' said Jean. 'Now aren't you glad I brought you?'
'We men 'ave seen it 'appen over and over. But the women can tyke an 'int quicker 'n what we can. They won't stand the nonsense men do. Only they 'aven't got a fair chawnce even to agitate fur their rights. As I wus comin' up ere, I 'eard a man sayin', "Look at this big crowd. W'y, we're all _men_! If the women want the vote, w'y ain't they here to s'y so?" Well, I'll tell you w'y. It's because they've 'ad to get the dinner fur you and me, and now they're washin' up dishes.'
'D'you think we ought to st'y at 'ome and wash the dishes?'
He laughed with good-natured shrewdness. 'Well, if they'd leave it to us once or twice per'aps we'd understand a little more about the Woman Question. I know w'y _my_ wife isn't here. It's because she _knows_ I can't cook, and she's 'opin' I can talk to some purpose. Yuss,'--he acknowledged another possible view,--'yuss, maybe she's mistaken. Any'ow, here I am to vote for her and all the other women, and to----'
They nearly drowned him with '_Oh-h!_' and 'Hear! hear!'
'And to tell you men what improvements you can expect to see w'en women 'as the share in public affairs they ought to 'ave!'
Out of the babel came the question, 'What do you know about it? You can't even talk grammar.'
'Oh, what shame!' said Jean, full of sympathy. 'He's a dear--that funny cockney.'
But he had been dashed for the merest moment.
'I'm not 'ere to talk grammar, but to talk Reform. I ain't defendin' my grammar,' he said, on second thoughts, 'but I'll say in pawssing that if my mother 'ad 'ad 'er rights, maybe my grammar would 'ave been better.'
It was a thrust that seemed to go home. But, all the same, it was clear that many of his friends couldn't stomach the sight of him up there demeaning himself by espousing the cause of the Suffragettes. He kept on about woman and justice, but his performance was little more than vigorous pantomime. The boyish chairman looked harassed and anxious, Miss Ernestine Blunt alert, watchful.