The Cabinet Minister controlled his indignation admirably, and with his pudgy knuckles rapped the offending newspaper, with the motion used by a carpenter when trying to locate the joist in a plastered wall, as he said:—
"Here is absolutely the most damnably mischievous thing I have seen for years, and this abominable sheet is featuring it on the Women's Page. They will all read it—and be infected. Women are such utterly unreasonable creatures. This is criminal."
"What is it, sir?" Peter asked deferentially.
The older man handed him the paper, and sat back in his chair, with his fat hands clasped over his rotund person, and an expression of deep disgust in his heavy gray eyes.
"Anything!—anything!—" he cried, "to gain a political advantage. They will even play up this poor little uneducated, and no doubt, mentally unfit country girl, and put in her picture and quotations from her hysterical speeches. They never think—or care—for the effect this will have on her, filling her head with all sorts of notions. This paper is absolutely without a soul, and seems determined to corrupt the country. And on the Women's Page, too, where they will all read it!"
"By Jove! that was good"—exclaimed the young man, as he read.
"What was good—are you reading what I gave you to read?" came from the older man.
"Yes, about this girl at Millford, it says: 'In the discussion that followed, the local member heatedly opposed the speaker's arguments favoring the sending of women to Parliament, and said when women sat in Parliament, he would retire—to which the speaker replied that this was just another proof of the purifying effect women would have on politics. This retort naturally brought down the house, and the local member was not heard from again'—terribly cheeky, of course, but rather neat, sir, don't you think?"
The Cabinet Minister took a thick cigar from his vest pocket, without replying.
"Who is the member from Millford," he demanded.