"I should like to know, by the way," he continues, "why English girls get taller and taller, stronger and stronger, and are as the very palm of the desert for vigor and force, whilst the English young man gets smaller and smaller, slighter and slighter, and has the nerves of an old maid and the habits of a valetudinarian. It is uncommonly droll; and, if the disparity goes on increasing, the ladies will not only get the franchise, but they will carry the male voter to the polling-place on their shoulders."
"As the French women did their husbands out of some town that surrendered in some war," said Boom, who was addicted to historical illustration and never lost occasion to display it.
"They won't carry their husbands," murmurs Brandolin. "They'll drive them, and carry somebody else."
"Will they have any husbands at all when they can do as they like?" says Boom.
"Probably not," says Brandolin. "My dear boy, what an earthly paradise awaits you when you shall be of mature age, and shall have seen us all descend one by one into the tomb, with all our social prejudices and antiquated ways!"
"I dare say he'll be a navvy in New Guinea by that time, and all his acres here will be being let out by the state at a rack-rent which the people will call free land," says the father, with a groan.
"Very possible, too," replies Brandolin.
The boy's eyes go thoughtfully towards the landscape beyond the windows, the beautiful lawns, the smiling gardens, the rolling woods. A look of resolution comes over his fair frank face.
"They shan't take our lands without a fight for it," he says, with a flush on his cheeks.
"And the fight will be a fierce one," says Brandolin, with a sigh, "and I am afraid it is in Mr. Gladstone's 'dim and distant future,'—that is to say, very near at hand indeed."