re of but a mediocre nature--the wonderment
was that they should be capable at all to execute such a hind-legged
feat and _tour de force_.

"Similarly, it is to me a gaping marvel that womanish tongues should
hold forth upon subjects which are naturally far outside the radius of
their comprehensions.

"The subject for our discursiveness to-night is, '_To what extent has
Ibsen contributed to the Cause (if any) of Female Emancipation?_' and
being a total ignoramus up to date of the sheer existence of said
hon'ble gentleman, I shall abstain from scratching my head over so
Sphinxian a conundrum, and confine myself to knuckling to the obiter
diction of sundry lady speakers.

"There was a stout full-blown matron, with grey curl-shavings and a
bonnet and plumage, who declaimed her opinionated conviction that it was
degrading and _infra dig._ for any woman to be treated as a doll.
(_Hear, hear._) Well, I would hatch the questionable egg of a doubt
whether any rationalistic masculine could regard the speaker herself in
a dollish aspect, and will assure her that in my fatherland every
cultivated native gentleman would approach her with the cold shoulder of
apprehensive respectfulness. (_The bonneted matron becomes ruddier than
the cherry with complacency, and fans herself vigorously._)

"Next I shall deal with the tall, meagre female near the fire-hearth, in
abbreviated hair and a nose-pinch, who set up the claim that her sex
were in all essentials the equals, if not the superiors, of man. Now,
without any gairish of words, I will proceed baldly to enumerate various
important physical differentiations which---- (_Intervention by Hon'ble
Chairwoman, reminding me that these were not in disputation._) I bow to
correction, and kiss the rod by summing up the gist of my argument,
viz., that it is nonsensical idiotcy to suppose that a woman can be the
equivalent of a man either in intellectual gripe, in bodily
robustiousness, or in physical courage. Of the last, I shall afford an
unanswerable proof from my own person. It is notorious, _urbi et orbi_,
that every feminine person will flee in panicstricken dismay from the
approach of the smallest mouse.

"I am a Bengali, and, as such, profusely endowed with the fugacious
instinct, and yet, shall I quake in appalling consternation if a mouse
is to invade my vicinity?

"Certainly I shall not; and why? Because, though not racially a
temerarious, I nevertheless appertain to the masculin