"We ought to have more. We're worth more," answered Billy. "The moment a man takes a serious hand in the next generation, he becomes a more dignified object and ought to fetch better money, for the sake of the wife and family. A married man ought to have better wages and be rewarded according to his breeding powers."
"And the women too. 'Tis a great fault in the State that our women don't make a penny by getting children," declared Moses.
"Unless they bring forth three at a birth," said Mr. Shillabeer. "Then 'tis well known that the Queen's Majesty sends three pounds out of her own money, to show that 'tis a glorious feat, in her gracious opinion."
"Well, we single men had better waste no more time, if Billy is right," said Mattacott. "For my part I've been looking round cautious for two years now; but I haven't found the right party. 'Tis the married girls I always feel I could have falled in love with, not the maidens."
"Just t'other way with me," declared Bartley. "I like the unexpected things the girls say and do. The ways of a woman are like the ways of the mist: past all finding out."
"True," declared Mr. Screech. "I know a bit about 'em; and shall know more come presently. But like the mist you'll find 'em."
"Now here, now away again," continued Bartley. "Now lying as still and as white as washing on the hill, now scampering off, hell for leather, without rhyme or reason. And so with them: they never do the expected thing."
"True," said Mr. Moses, "you've hit 'em there. As soon as a girl answers me the direct opposite of what I expect, then I know that girl's a child no more. She's grown up, and 'tis time for her to put up her hair and let down her dress."
"Never the expected thing," repeated Crocker, meditatively. "They cry when they ought to laugh; they cuss when they ought to cherish; they fondle when they ought to whip. They forgive the wrong sins; they punish the wrong men; they break the wrong hearts."
"And when they've done their bitter worst," added Charles Moses; "when they've set a man against Heaven, and life in general, and made him pretty well hungry to creep into his grave and get out of it; when they've driven him to the edge of madness and forced him to damn and blast 'em to the pit--then what do the long-haired humans do?"