'Men and women,' she began, pitching her rather thin voice several notes too high.
'Men and women!' some one piped in mimicry; and the crowd dissolved in laughter.
It was curious to note again how that occasional exaggerated shrillness of the feminine voice when raised in the open air—how it amused the mob. They imitated the falsetto with squeals of delight. Each time she began afresh she was met by the shrill echo of her own voice. The contest went on for several minutes. The spectacle of the agitated little figure, bobbing and gesticulating and nothing heard but shrill squeaks, raised a very pandemonium of merriment. It didn't mend matters for her to say when she did get a hearing—
'I've come all the way from——' (place indistinguishable in the confusion) 'to talk to you this afternoon——'
'’ow kind!'
'Do you reely think they could spare you?'
'And I'm going to convert every man within reach of my voice.'
Groans, and 'Hear! Hear!'
'Let's see you try!'
She talked on quite inaudibly for the most part. A phrase here and there came out, and the rest lost. So much hilarity in the crowd attracted to it a bibulous gentleman, who kept calling out, 'Oh, the pretty dear!' to the rapture of the bystanders. He became so elevated that the police were obliged to remove him. When the excitement attending this passage had calmed down, the reformer was perceived to be still piping away.