"May it please your Honour," she began, "we are a committee from the Central Bureau of Federated Children's Organisations and we have come here to protest against certain intolerable conditions of which our members are the victims."
Had they come in behalf of those additional three million dollars, the mayor wondered uneasily. "State the nature of your grievance," he said.
The leader of the delegation came a step nearer. "Your Honour, I can only attempt the merest outline of our general position. Several of my associates will take turns in acquainting you with the details of our case. Our complaint is that we, the children of this country, are being overworked. Formerly it was supposed to be the inalienable right of children to remain free from the cares of life. That theory has long been abandoned. The task of solving the gravest problems of existence has been thrust upon us, and every day that passes leaves us saddled with new responsibilities. But the limit of endurance has been reached at last. We feel that unless we protest now the whole structure of society—its economics, politics, art, and religion—will be shifted from the shoulders of the world's men and women to the shoulders of us children. I hope your Honour is willing to hear us."
"Of course, my dear," the mayor answered softly. He said, "My dear," and he said it tenderly because he had recognised in the speaker his own daughter Helen, whom he had supposed with her mother at the theatre.
"Step forward, Flora Binns," said Helen, and Flora Binns, who was only eight, blue-eyed, and with ringlets of gold, approached and curtsied prettily. "May it please your Honour," she said, "I am the delegate from Local No. 16 Children of Weak and Tempted Stage Mothers' Union. We wish to place on record our opposition to the modern society drama, which so frequently throws the duty of supporting the climax of a play upon children under the age of ten. Although the playwrights are fond of showing that our papa is a brute and that our mamma is an angel, they invariably shrink from the logical conclusion that our mamma is right in planning to run away with the man who has offered her years of silent devotion. So the playwrights make one or two of us appear on the stage just in time to arouse in our mamma a sense of duty to her children and to prevent the elopement. Now we submit that the office of justifying our entire modern marriage fabric is too burdensome for us. Don't you think so, Mr. Mayor?"
"Why, yes," replied the mayor, thoughtfully.
"And they make use of us in other ways, sir. In fact, whenever the grown up persons in a play are in difficulties and the audience is beginning to yawn, the author sends us to the rescue. Why, only the other day we children saved a Wild West melodrama from utter failure. It took three of us to do it, but we succeeded." Flora curtsied, started back and returned. "And when I utter these sentiments, sir, I speak also for the Union of Precocious Magazine Children, which is represented here by Mary Sparks." Mary Sparks, a dark-haired miss with dancing eyes, bowed saucily.
"Step out, Fritz Hackenschneider," said Helen, and flaxen-haired Fritz, radiantly holiday-like in his lustrously washed face and large, blue polka-dot tie, approached the mayor's chair.
"I don't have much to say, sir," he recited in a nervous, jerky voice. "I have been sent by the Fraternal Association of Comic Supplement Children. We wish to raise our voice against the almost universal conception that people can be made to laugh only when one of us hides a pin on the seat of grandpa's chair. The burden of an entire nation's humour is more than we can sustain. Thank you, sir," and he retired into the background, giving, as he passed, just one tug at Mary Sparks's hair and eliciting a suppressed scream.
"Mamie O'Farrell," called out Helen. The mayor found it impossible to decide whether Mamie was thirteen or twenty-five. She was very short and flat-chested, and the colour of her face in the firelight was like a dull cardboard. She wore a long, faded automobile cloak and an enormous black hat with a trailing green feather. On a gilt chain about her neck hung a locket in the form of a heart half as large as the one that beat uneasily within her. Mamie came forward reluctantly and saluted. Then she began to squirm from side to side and to shift from foot to foot, giggling in unfathomable embarrassment.