Milford did not take issue with his newly adopted creed. He brought up a jug of cider and they drank to it. The Professor had an option on four bullocks, and they drunk to them. And then filling his cup, the reformed scholar said:
"To our dear enemies, the ladies."
"No," Milford replied. He had that day received a letter. "I won't drink to them as our enemies."
"Well, then, as our endeared mistakes."
"Ha! you put me to for a term. What shall we call them?"
"The honest helpers of dishonest men," said Milford.
The Professor frowned. "I cannot subscribe to a sentiment so ruffled and furbelowed with—shall I say tawdry flounces? Permit me; I have said it. My dear fellow, in this humid air of American sentimentalism, we are not permitted to talk rationally about woman. Some man is always ready to hop up and declare that his mother is a woman. Of course she is. Has any one ever disputed the fact? His mother is a woman, and so in fact we hope is the person whom he expects to marry—I say expects to marry, for it is usually an unmarried man who hops up. I would not abolish marriage, you understand. I would—well, I would insist upon both parties having a little more sense. I would enact a law, compelling a man, before being granted a license, to show a certificate of financial success. I would inquire into the amount of money he had realized on his last lot of bullocks."
"You'd have a fine world."
"Wouldn't I? There would be no scuffling for life insurance, no harassment over wall-paper, no daughters to pity a father's failure. If I could roll up the surface of the sea into a megaphone, I would shout a caution to the unmarried world."