"Good old sport, that's what I call the old gal!" cried a young fellow, challenging criticism in a threatening tone.
"Same 'ere," returned the pretty girl-sinner, or saint, not laughing this time, as she looked after the flapping flag that had brought a streak of colour, for one hour of her turbulent existence, into the black spot of the constituency.
[X]
"Votes for Women—Forward!"
When our local committee determined, in the words of the minutes book, to open a shop and offices in the local main street, "for the dissemination of suffrage literature," we made up our minds that we would not be amateur shopkeepers. The success of our venture, we argued solemnly, depended on convincing the neighbourhood that we meant to be taken as seriously as any other tradesman in the street. Unfortunately, in saying this, we reckoned without our customer; for, if you attempt to be taken seriously as a shopkeeper, the one error to be avoided is that of taking the customer seriously.
Naturally, we began by taking the customer very seriously. The first one who entered the shop was instantly confronted with three eager shop assistants, who asked him breathlessly and in unison what they might have the pleasure of showing him. He replied politely that he had known perfectly well what they might have the pleasure of showing him, before they asked him what it was, but that their unbroken front and commercial zeal had entirely put it out of his head. Two of us thereupon beat a wise retreat and left the field to the militant member of our committee, who promptly told our first customer that she was sure he wanted a suffrage tie in the colours. He agreed to this, dubiously at first, afterwards with real alacrity when she offered him the alternative of a tobacco-pouch, prettily decorated with a hand-painted sketch of Holloway Gaol, done from memory.
"I never smoke a pipe," he explained, excusing himself for his firmness over the tobacco-pouch; "but I can wear the tie, perhaps, when I call on people who won't allow me to talk about votes for women."
"This tie will speak for itself," said the shop assistant.
"It will," agreed her customer with a warmth that seemed to us excessive, until we perceived that the tie was oozing forth in all directions from the insufficient piece of paper in which it was being wrapped up.