"The ladies won't be harmed. Any one that disrespects the ladies will be chucked out."
The ladies had to laugh at this, and the meeting went right merrily, and more merrily in that half the "blowing" from the stage was drowned by the interjectory din from the rear of the building, where lads and men stood chock-a-block, the former, and the latter too, making right royal use of their licence to be rowdy; but such a good-natured crowd could not often be seen. There were no altercations, only laughter and the crude repartee of such a gathering.
The first speaker having returned to his seat and sanity, the second took his place.
"Hullo, Tomatoes! What's the price of onions and spuds?"
"Now begin and tell the ladies how intelligent they are, so you'll get their vote."
"Tomatoes" did butter the ladies, next yelled that the civil servants would not be retrenched, and then upheld the virulent attack on the government. Keeping in time with the utterances of "Tomato Jimmy," the boys at the back grew so boisterous that at one time it appeared inevitable that the meeting must break up in disorder. The chairman, the candidates, the ladies, the whole house rose, and one man towards the front made himself heard amid the babel to the effect that the ladies ought to walk out to show their resentment of the insults that had been offered their presence by this disorderly behaviour.
"Ladies, don't go. Dear ladies, don't go," called some wags. "We're only educatin' you in politics,—learning you how to be like your superiors—men."
This evoked a round of laughter, and order was restored.
"That's right, ladies, don't go; if you was to turn dawg on us now, we'd be so crestfallen we couldn't think about politics and save the country at all."
Once more "Tomatoes" belched forth the infamy of the government, and louder and louder he yelled, till one marvelled at his endurance. Rougher and hotter grew his repartee till, by sheer abuse, he gained the ascendancy; but there was no sane statement of what he would propose as a remedy. Grandma Clay happened to rise as he neared the finish to see about a reticule she had dropped, and proved a target for those at the rear.