'Lord!' said an old fellow, with a rich chuckle. 'She's a educatin' of [us!']
'—and partly that the bravest man is afraid of ridicule. Oh, yes, we've heard a great deal all our lives about the timidity and the sensitiveness of women. And it's true—we are sensitive. But I tell you, ridicule crumples a man up. It steels a woman. We've come to know the value of ridicule. We've educated ourselves so that we welcome ridicule. We owe our sincerest thanks to the comic writers. The cartoonist is our unconscious friend. Who cartoons people who are of no importance? What advertisement is so sure of being remembered? If we didn't know it by any other sign, the comic papers would tell us—we've arrived!'
She stood there for one triumphant moment in an attitude of such audacious self-confidence, that Jean turned excitedly to her lover with—
'I know what she's like! The girl in Ibsen's "Master Builder"!'
'I don't think I know the young lady.'
'Oh, there was a knock at the door that set the Master Builder's nerves quivering. He felt in his bones it was the Younger Generation coming to upset things. He thought it was a young man——'
'And it was really Miss Ernestine Blunt? He has my sympathies.'
The Younger Generation was declaring from the monument—
'Our greatest debt of gratitude we owe to the man who called us female hooligans!'