MRS. TILSBURY. Don’t you know who she is? Why she is one of the most important fighters for “the cause.” Don’t you remember the lawsuit she brought last year against the bootblack at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge? She wanted to sit up in his chair and have her boots blackened during the rush hours and the boy objected and said it wasn’t customary. They got into a dispute while a whole line of men were kept waiting. Finally the bootblack became angry and declared he would not do it and that he had not the facilities for blackening ladies’ boots. She said that she didn’t wear ladies’ boots and he replied that “of course, since she wasn’t a lady, she couldn’t wear ladies’ boots, but he’d be darned if he would touch her old footgear anyway.” The newspapers were full of the case. I wonder you did not read about it, but I suppose you were not interested. Mildred read it aloud to me because she is a friend of Mrs. Thom.
MRS. BROWN. Did Mrs. Thom bring an action against the bootblack?
MRS. TILSBURY. Yes, she claimed that blackening boots is a public utility service and that a bootblack stand in the street occupies public property and should be open to all taxpayers, men or women. The boy retaliated by demanding damages for his loss of patronage while he and Mrs. Thom were fighting it out. He said it was more difficult to please women than men and that he didn’t want women clients, that the women would be setting up boot stands next and taking all the trade away from the men just as they were trying to do in the newspaper selling. The Anti’s took up the controversy and said it was improper for women to have from their boots blackened in public because they were obliged to lift their skirts too high. I can’t stay any longer. Mrs. Thom will have talked Mildred out of her last cent.
MRS. BROWN. Tell us first, which won out, Mrs. Thom or the bootblack?
MRS. TILSBURY. Can you ask, having met Mrs. Thom? (She goes out.)
MRS. BROWN. Mr. Becker, it seems to me that you and I are the only two people around here who have any sense left. I can see that you believe in the old-fashioned doctrine that the man should go out into the world to make his fame and fortune and that the woman should try to make a happy home to which he may return. That is my doctrine also.
MR. BECKER. “Man for the field and woman for the hearth.”
MRS. BROWN. Exactly. How concisely expressed. Is that original, Mr. Becker?
MR. BECKER. No. It is from Tennyson’s Princess.
MRS. BROWN. You are so clever. You know everything. I couldn’t help but admire the way you answered Mrs. Thom. Why do women make such fools of themselves? They can never be so clever as men. Why do they try to be?