“If a woman did that to me,” said the nearest man, “I’d thrash her, I would. Thank God, I’m a bachelor.”
“I don’t know what women are coming to,” said a fat little man, as cosily tucked into his chair as a hazel nut in its husk. “They seem to think they can do just as they please.”
A tall thin man said:
“It all began with the bicycle. Women have never been the same since bicycles came in.”
“It wouldn’t have been so bad,” said the fat little man, “if they’d cut and run.”
And Old Mole repeated that sentence to himself.
“What I can’t understand is,” said the first speaker, who seemed the most indignant, “why he didn’t shut her up until she had come to her senses. After all, we are all human, and that is what I should have done. If women won’t regard the sacredness of the home, where are we?”
“Surely,” said Old Mole, incensed into speaking, “it depends on the home.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” retorted the nearest man with some heat. “It does not. In these matters you can’t make exceptions. Home is home, and there is no getting away from it. If a woman grows sick of her home it is her own fault and she must stick to it, dree her own weird, as the Scotch say. Destroy the home and society falls to the ground.”
And Old Mole, sharpened by argument, replied: