"Well," Ezra began, with a cough and a smile, "I cannot say that I know all about it, but naturally I do know something, perhaps a little more than any other of our sex." "Our sex" was the offspring of his wife's favourite term, the "other sex." Ezra was so seldom the centre of interest, or the source of information, that the position which he held at that moment pleased him immensely.
"Your wife has been chosen president, I believe," said Mr. Blake.
"Yes," replied Ezra, proudly, "and she was the one who conceived the idea, the founder, one could justly say."
"You don't say so!" exclaimed Sam.
Ezra smiled a broader smile as he looked at the interested, open-mouthed men about him. Very likely he thought that the next best thing to being a man himself was to have a manly wife.
"What did you say?" Ezra asked, turning toward Peter, who had spoken from the depths of a sugar-barrel.
"Green tea, or black?" said Peter as he withdrew his head and shoulders from the barrel, his face very red.
"Oh, green and black mixed, please," replied Ezra, and then picking up the thread of the conversation where he had dropped it continued: "Yes, Mrs. Tweedie founded the club, and is now its president. I feel confident that it is going to be a grand thing for our town."
"How's that?" Sam asked, hoping to "set Ezra a-goin'," as he would have expressed it.
"How?" repeated Ezra. "By lifting us out of the mire of ignorance, by encouraging social intercourse, in fact, by broadening us in every way."