'Perhaps,' said her sister, looking back at the gesticulating
figure--'perhaps we're being a little unreasonable. We were annoyed at
first because they weren't what we expected, and when we get what we
came to see, we run away.'

While still they lingered, with a final fling of arms and toss of
plumes, the champion of the women of England sat down in the midst of
applause.

'You hear? It's all very well. Most of them simply loved it.'

And now the chairman, in a strikingly different style, was preparing the
way for the next speaker, at mention of whom the crowd seemed to feel
they'd been neglecting their prerogative of hissing.

'What name did she say? Why do they make that noise?'

The two ladies began to worm their way back; but this was a different
matter from coming out.

'Wot yer doin'?' some one inquired sternly of Mrs. Fox-Moore.

Another turned sharply, 'Look out! Oo yer pushin', old girl?'

The horrid low creatures seemed to have no sense of deference. And the
stuff they smoked!

'Pah!' observed Mrs. Fox-Moore, getting the full benefit of a noxious
puff. '_Pah!_'

'_Wot!_' said the smoker, turning angrily. 'Pah to you, miss!' He eyed
Mrs. Fox-Moore from head to foot with a withering scorn. 'Comin' 'ere
awskin' us fur votes' (Vida nearly fainted), 'and ain't able to stand a
little tobacco.'

'Stand in front, Janet,' said Miss Levering, hastily recovering herself.
'_I_ don't mind smoke,' she said mendaciously, trying to appease the
defiler of the air with a little smile. Indeed, the idea of Mrs.
Fox-Moore having come to 'awsk' this person for a vote was sufficiently
quaint.

'This is the sort of thing they mean, I suppose,' said that lady, 'when
they talk about cockney humour. It doesn't appeal to me.'

Vida bit her lip. Her own taste was less pure. 'We needn't try to get
any nearer,' she said hastily. 'This chairman-person can make herself
heard without screeching.'

But having lost the key during the passage over the pipe, they could
only make out that she was justifying some one to the mob, some one who
apparently was coming in for too much sharp criticism for the chairman
to fling her to the wolves without first diverting them a little. The
battle of words that ensued was almost entirely unintelligible to the
two ladies, but they gathered, through means more expressive than
speech, that the chairman was dealing with some sort of crisis in the
temper of the meeting, brought about by the me