Sez Samantha, "It has worked well in other states; it has helped men, wimmen and children mentally, socially and legally. If it wuz such a dangerous thing as you say it is, why have men granted suffrage to wimmen after it has been tried for twenty years or more in a neighborin' state, right in their own dooryard as you may say? Would they venter if they hadn't found that it wuz a good thing?"
Sez I hautily, "I am not talkin' about other states or other countries, or other males or other females. I am working and writing in the interests of Jonesville and its environin' environs. I am tryin' to ward off with my right hand, and my steeled pen the waves of error that I see in my own mind sweepin' down nigher and nigher onto us."
And I went on with a soarin' eloquence enough to melt the heart of a salamander, "I stand at the Gate of Jonesville as the boy stood on the burnin' deck when all but him had flowed, and I will stand there protectin' that Gate, and us male Jonesvillians from infringin' and encroachin' females till I'm sot fire to."
I waved out my hand in a noble jester as I spoke, and spozed mebby it would touch Samantha's heart. But she looked at me over her specs from head to foot in the cool aggravatin' way wimmen have sometimes, and I read in her eyes the remark she didn't utter:
"You hain't big enough to make much of a bonfire."
But I didn't reply to that unuttered tant, I felt above it, and went on, "I am not the only man who takes that firm onchangeable position. England has a high official who occupies the same noble poster. He don't heed or care what females want or don't want, nor what other statesmen want or don't want. Nor he don't care what is goin' on in other parts of the world, or not goin' on. His proud position is to shield England from the encroachin' army of Female Suffragists. To do what he's made up his mind to do, and nothin' can't stop him, not threats, nor reason, nor argument, nor broken winders, nor torn coat tails. A good hard shakin' from a female can't change him, nor shake his resolve out of him, nor hunger strikes, nor fleein' wimmen, nor pursuin' ones. He stands side by side with me. And even if it brought the towers of Jonesville and England in ruins at our four feet we would not then change our two great minds.
"His bizness is to not look to see what is done in other places or not done, but to protect his own Green Isle from what he's made up his mind is dangerous and infringin'.
"Oh," sez I with a deep heart felt sithe, "would that we two congenial souls might meet and sympathize with each other. But though sea and land divides our bodies, our sperits meet and flow together." I wuz almost lost in the rapped idee of the sweet conference meetin' we two could enjoy together. But anon I gin my attention to the subject momentarily broke in upon (for my mind is so large and roomy it is big enough for several trains of thought to run through it at one time).
And I sez as I remarked prior and heretofore, "Samantha, that courtesy in males is a most beautiful trait; you see it everywhere, to mill and to meetin', as the old sayin' is. Now last week when I wuz to the conference, Uncle Sime and I wuz in a crowded street car and a dretful fat woman come in, heftier than you are, Samantha."
"Is it possible?" sez she coldly (she thinks I make light of her heft but I don't; it hain't nothin' to make light of, specially when you lift her in and out the democrat).