“I have never heard that argument used,” said the suffragette soberly. “I didn’t know that even men——”
“Why, you’re as dense as he was,” snapped the Chief M.S. “Of course they don’t put it like that. He asked me which M.P. was responsible for the tubular argument. I saw it was no use going on. He left his address for me to give you.”
“What was it you wanted to see me about?” asked the suffragette.
“Did I want—Oh, yes.... Well, I have been thinking you have done nothing for the Cause lately, have you?”
The suffragette fingered a sore dint under the shadow of her hat. “Hardly anything,” she admitted.
“I think the slum districts want working up,” said the Chief M.S. “Somebody who walked behind you in the procession said you hobnobbed wonderfully with the North London women. How would it be if you were to undertake a series of informal meetings——”
“It isn’t meetings they want, they told me so themselves,” said the suffragette.
“It’s meetings everybody wants,” retorted the Chief M.S. “I thought also that you might start a soup kitchen or a turkey club, or one of those things that one does start in the slums. You can’t educate the poor without feeding them, I’m sure.”
“Nonsense!” said the suffragette, who was certainly no more accommodating as a follower than as a woman. “I don’t believe the anatomy of the poor is one bit different from the anatomy of the rich. And I don’t believe the way to anybody’s soul lies through their stomach. Only if one is hungry, one naturally pretends that blind alley is a thoroughfare.”
“How do you suggest that the slums should be worked up, then, may I ask?” said the Chief M.S. coldly. There is no point in being a born leader, if the rank and file refuses to behave suitably.