Mrs. Bates presently effected a clearance, and with Brower as a convoy steered straight for the open sea. She carried a bunch of plumes aloft, showed a flashing brilliant on both the port and the starboard side, and left a long trail of rustling silk and lace behind her. And as she pursued her course, other craft, great and small, dipped their colors right and left.
"I want you to see both ends of the scale," she presently said to Brower.
"You are trying to bring them closer together, they tell me."
"That is a part of our object," replied Brower.
"Well, you have one end in your Nineteenth Ward, and the other here. I want you to get the good side of this."
"I should be glad to; there is one, I'm sure."
"To begin with, don't encourage your associates to talk about the 'butterflies of fashion,' and that sort of thing. There are no butterflies in this town, except young girls under twenty, and you surely won't quarrel with them. Yes, we are all workers; what could Idleness herself do with her time in such a place as this? You've got to work in self-defence. Do you see that woman up aloft there?"
"Well?"
"She's the president and responsible manager of an orphan asylum. That one over across on the other side is an officer of the Civil Federation. Do you believe in that?"
"Devoutly."
"The woman just ahead of us—the purple velvet one—is a member of the
Board of Education; she helps to place teachers and to audit coal bills.
Why, even I myself have got a good many more things to look after than
you could easily shake a stick at!"