MILDRED. If we helped to make the laws, Mr. Becker, we wouldn’t want to break them. One takes care of whatever one has made. I used to have a maid who never put away my dresses carefully unless she had put a clean collar or a fresh ruffle on one and then she was always most particular to keep it nice. It seemed as if when once she had put a little of her own hand work on a gown that it acquired a new value for her.
MR. BECKER. Be law-abiding citizens first and prove yourselves fit to vote. Women are natural law-breakers. Look how women smuggle. The wealthiest and most fashionable are proud of cheating the government by bringing in some gown or jewel without paying duty on it. Mrs. Brown, here, wouldn’t think of keeping a pig if it were not for the excitement of breaking the law.
MRS. BROWN. It isn’t that at all, Mr. Becker. I keep him to make conversation. Other women have dogs for the purpose, but a unique one is too expensive and there is almost nothing left to say about an ordinary one. I never smuggled anything in my life—that is nothing more important than a pair of silk stockings.
MR. BECKER. That illustrates what I was saying. Women make a business of smuggling for the sake of excitement. Couldn’t you have bought—the article in question just as well in New York, Mrs. Brown?
MRS. TILSBURY. (Anxious to keep the peace.) Cochon seems to be making plenty of conversation at present. Were you at the meeting this afternoon, Mr. Becker?
MRS. BROWN. It’s a foolish old law about pigs anyway. So far from buying Cochon to break it, I never knew anything about it until Mrs. de Huyster looked it up to keep me out of the Colonial Caudlers. She said that my ancestress was the last woman to keep pigs in New York, and that she defied the authorities and was arrested; that a woman like that probably stole her caudle-cup from some one else, and that I was not a proper person to become a member of the society on that account.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. How interesting! Then your taste for pigs is an example of heredity.
MR. BECKER. And your taste for law-breaking also. What is the Society of Colonial Caudlers? I never heard of it.
MR. VAN TOUSEL. It is a very fine society, Mr. Becker. My mother is one of its originators and a vice-president. All the members are women who have inherited a caudle-cup from a Colonial ancestor, and on New Year’s Day, they all meet and drink punch out of the cups. It is a very exclusive society. I don’t wonder you have never heard of it.
MRS. BROWN. It is very difficult to get in, but Mrs. de Huyster couldn’t keep me out in spite of her raking up old history, for I discovered that her cup was only pewter, and she had to turn all her attention to passing a by-law that pewter cups were admissible as well as silver. They had an awful time. It almost broke up the whole society. The pewterites claimed to be the real thing because they said that the pewter cups came over first and that silver cups were not introduced until much later, and that only the parvenues in the Colonies had silver cups.