ess objectionable
utterances were: 'Where did you get that 'at?' 'The one in green is my
girl!' 'Got yer dog-whip, miss?' and such-like utterances.

The person thus pointedly alluded to left her companions ranged along
the side of the cart against the background of banner, while she, the
famous Miss Claxton, took the meeting in charge. She wasted no time,
this lady. Her opening remarks, which, in the face of a fire of
interruption, took the form of an attack upon the Government, showed her
an alert, competent, cut-and-thrust, imperturbably self-possessed
politician, who knew every aspect of the history of the movement, as
able to answer any intelligent question off-hand as to snub an impudent
irrelevance, able to take up a point and drive it well in--to shrug and
smile or frown and point her finger, all with most telling effect, and
keep the majority of her audience with her every minute of the time.

As a mere exhibition of nerve it was a thing to make you open your eyes.
Only a moment was she arrested by either booing or applause. When a knot
of young men, who had pushed their way near the front, kept on shouting
argument and abuse, she interrupted her harangue an instant. Pointing
out the ring-leader--

'Now you be quiet, if you please,' she said. 'These people are here to
listen to _me_.'

'No, they ain't. They come to see wot you look like.'

'That can't be so,' she said calmly, 'because after they've seen us they
stay.' Then, as the interrupter began again, 'No, it's no use, my
man'--she shook her head gently as if almost sorry for him--'you can't
talk _me_ down!'

'Now, ain't that just _like_ a woman!' he complained to the crowd.

Just in front of where Miss Levering and her satellite first came to a
standstill, was a cheerful, big, sandy man with long flowing
moustachios, a polo cap, and a very dirty collar. At intervals he
inquired of the men around him, in a great jovial voice, 'Are we
down-'earted?' as though the meeting had been called, not for the
purpose of rousing interest in the question of woman's share in the work
of the world, but as though its object were to humiliate and
disfranchise the men. But his exclamation, repeated at intervals, came
in as a sort of refrain to the rest of the proceedings.

'The Conservatives,' said the speaker, 'had never pretended they
favoured broadening the basis of the franchise. But here were these
Liberals, for thirty years they'd been saying that the demand on