nd the men are neither jealous of it or injured by it.
This is such a commonplace that I am almost ashamed to state it."

I said, "O; and legislation? do they take any part in that?"

Hammond smiled and said: "I think you may wait for an answer to that
question till we get on to the subject of legislation. There may be
novelties to you in that subject also."

"Very well," I said; "but about this woman question? I saw at the Guest
House that the women were waiting on the men: that seems a little like
reaction doesn't it?"

"Does it?" said the old man; "perhaps you think housekeeping an
unimportant occupation, not deserving of respect. I believe that was the
opinion of the 'advanced' women of the nineteenth century, and their male
backers. If it is yours, I recommend to your notice an old Norwegian
folk-lore tale called How the Man minded the House, or some such title;
the result of which minding was that, after various tribulations, the man
and the family cow balanced each other at the end of a rope, the man
hanging halfway up the chimney, the cow dangling from the roof, which,
after the fashion of the country, was of turf and sloping down low to the
ground. Hard on the cow, _I_ think. Of course no such mishap could
happen to such a superior person as yourself," he added, chuckling.

I sat somewhat uneasy under this dry gibe. Indeed, his manner of
treating this latter part of the question seemed to me a little
disrespectful.

"Come, now, my friend," quoth he, "don't you know that it is a great
pleasure to a clever woman to manage a house skilfully, and to do it so
that all the house-mates about her look pleased, and are grateful to her?
And then, you know, everybody likes to be ordered about by a pretty
woman: why, it is one of the pleasantest forms of flirtation. You are
not so old that you cannot remember that. Why, I remember it well."

And the old fellow chuckled again, and at last fairly burst out laughing.

"Excuse me," said he, after a while; "I am not laughing at anything you
could be thinking of; but at that silly nineteenth-century fashion,
current amongst rich so-called cultivated people, of ignoring all the
steps by which their daily dinner was reached, as matters too low for
their lofty intelligence. Useless idiots! Come, now, I am a 'literary
man,' as we queer animals used to be called, yet I am a pretty good cook
myself."

"So am I," said I.

"Well, then," said he, "I really think you