'Why, that's just what the hooligans all say!' laughed Vida. 'And, like you, they think that if a woman wants justice for other women she must have a grievance of her own. I've heard them ask Ernestine in Battersea—she has valiant friends there—"Oo's 'urt your feelin's?" they say. "Tell me, and I'll punch 'is 'ead." But you aren't here to listen to me!' Vida caught herself up. 'This is about the deputation of women that waited on the Prime Minister.'
'Didn't get nothin' out of him!' somebody shouted.
'Oh, yes, we did! We got the best speech in favour of Woman's Suffrage that any of us ever heard.'
'Haw! Haw! Clever ol' fox!'
'’E just buttered 'em up! But 'e don't do nothin'.'
'Oh, yes, he did something!'
'What?'
'He gave us advice!' They all laughed together at that in the most friendly spirit in the world. 'Two nice pieces,' Ernestine held up each hand very much like a school child rejoicing over slices of cake. 'One we are taking'—she drew in a hand—'the other we aren't'—she let it fall. 'He said we must win people to our way of thinking. We're doing it; at a rate that must astonish, if it doesn't even embarrass him. The other piece of distinguished advice he gave us was of a more doubtful character.' Her small hands took it up gingerly. Again she seemed to weigh it there in the face of the multitude. 'The Prime Minister said we "must have patience." She threw the worthless counsel into the air and tossed contempt after it. 'It is man's oldest advice to woman!'
'All our trouble fur nothin'!' groaned an impish boy.
'We see now that patience has been our bane. If it hadn't been for this same numbing slavish patience we wouldn't be standing before the world to-day, political outcasts—catalogued with felons and lunatics——'