ence';
the dreadful kind of person who speaks of a subject as 'meaty' instead of
properly employing the words 'substance' or 'material'; the sort of----"

Langdon, red and wrathful, sat up on the ground, peering at her through
the enveloping net.

"Never in my life," he said, "have I been spoken to in such terms of
feminine contempt. Stop it! Can't you appreciate a joke?"

"Mr. Langdon, the day is past when women will either countenance or take
part in any disrespectful witticisms, slurs, or jests at the expense of
their own sex. Once--and that not very long ago--they did it. Comic
papers made my sex the subject of cartoons and witticisms; the stage
dared to spread the contemptible misinformation; women either smiled or
remained indifferent. The impression became general and fixed that women
were gallinaceous, that a hen-like philosophy characterised the sex; that
they were, at best, second-rate humans, tagging rather gratefully at the
heels of the Lords of Creation, unconcerned with the greater and vital
questions of the world.

"Now your sex has discovered its mistake. After countless centuries of
intellectual and physical bondage Woman has calmly risen to assert
herself--not as the peer of man, _but as his superior_!"

"What!" exclaimed Langdon, angrily.

"Certainly. Since prehistoric times man has attempted to govern and
shape the destinies of all things living on this earth. He has made of
his reign a miserable fizzle. It is our turn now to try our hands.

"And so, at last, woman steps forward, tipping the symbols of despotic
power--sceptre and crown--from the nerveless hand and dishonoured brow of
her recent lord and master! And down he goes under her feet--where he
belongs."

Langdon, unable to endure such language, attempted to sit up, but the net
interfered and he lay clawing at the meshes while the girl calmly
continued:

"The human race, as it is at present, is a disgrace to the world it
inhabits. We women have now decided to repeople the earth scientifically
with a race as wholesome in body as our instruction shall render it in
mind. Those among us women who are adjudged physically and mentally
perfect for this great and sacred work have pledged ourselves to the
sacrifice--_pro bono publico_.

"We shall pick out, from your degenerate sex, such physically perfect
individuals as chance to remain; we shall regard our marriages with them
as purely scientific and cold-blooded affairs; we have begun, f