aper--they're all so
deadly afraid of the government, so I stepped in, and while Boswell is
baking I'm attending to his editorial duties."

"But you spoke contemptuously of the Sunday newspapers awhile ago, Mrs.
Socrates," said I.

"I know that," said Xanthippe, "but I've fixed that. I get out the
Sunday edition on Saturdays."

"Oh--I see. And you like it?" I queried.

"First rate," she replied. "I'm in love with the work. I almost wish
poor old Bos had been sentenced for ten years. I have enough of the
woman in me to love minding other people's business, and, as far as I
can find out, that's about all journalism amounts to. Sewing societies
aren't to be mentioned in the same day with a newspaper for scandal and
gossip, and, besides, I'm an ardent advocate of men's rights--have been
for centuries--and I've got my first chance now to promulgate a few
of my ideas. I'm really a man in all my views of life--that's the
inevitable end of an advanced woman who persists in following her
'newness' to its logical conclusion. Her habits of thought gradually
come to be those of a man. Even I have a great deal more sympathy with
Socrates than I used to have. I used to think I was the one that should
be emancipated, but I'm really reaching that stage in my manhood where I
begin to believe that he needs emancipation."

"Then you admit, do you," I cried, with great glee, "that this new-woman
business is all Tommy-rot?"

"Not by a great deal," snapped the machine. "Far from it. It's the
salvation of the happy life. It is perfectly logical to say that the
more manny a woman becomes, the more she is likely to sympathize with
the troubles and trials which beset men."

I scratched my head and pulled the lobe of my ear in the hope of
loosening an argument to confront her with, not that I disagreed with
her entirely, but because I instinctively desired to oppose her as
pleasantly disagreeably as I could. But the result was nil.

"I'm afraid you are right," I said.

"You're a truthful man," clicked the machine, laughingly. "You are
afraid I'm right. And why are you afraid? Because you are one of those
men who take a cynical view of woman. You want woman to be a mere lump
of sugar, content to be left in a bowl until it pleases you in your
high-and-mightiness to take her in the tongs and drop her into the
coffee of your existence, to sweeten what would otherwise not please
your taste--and like most men you prefer two or three lumps to