f--Well, we can take that up later. Tell me how you like the speech."

_Mere_ mumbled the report aloud to the delighted audience. Pop heard
little of it. He was having a chill. It was very like plain ague, but he
credited it to the terror of Julie's mission home. All she wanted him to
do was to send her on a little jaunt to San Francisco! The tyrant, as
usual, was expected to finance the rebellion.

When _Mere_ had finished reading everybody applauded Julie except Pop.
_Mere_ overheard his silence and rounded on him across the aristocratic
reading-glass she wielded.

"Did you hear that?"

Pop was so startled that he answered, "Uh-huh!"

"Didn't you think it was splendid?" _Mere_ demanded.

"Uh-huh!" said Pop.

"What didn't you like about it?"

"I liked it all first-rate. Julie is a smart girl, I tell you."

_Mere_ scented his evasion, and she would never tolerate evasions. She
repeated:

"What didn't you like about it?"

"I liked all I could understand."

"Understand!" snapped _Mere_, who rarely wasted her culture on Pop.
"What didn't you understand? Could anything be clearer than this?
Listen!" She read in an oratorical voice:

"'Woman has been for ages man's mere beast of burden, his household
drudge. Being a wife has meant being a slave--the only servant without
wages or holiday. But the woman of to-day at last demands that the
shackles be stricken off; she demands freedom to live her life her own
way--to express her selfhood without the hampering restrictions imposed
on her by the barbaric customs inherited from the time of the
cave-man.'"

_Mere_ folded up the clipping and glared defiance at the cave-man
slumped in the uneasy chair.

"What's clearer than that?" she reiterated.

Pop was at bay. He was like a desperate rabbit. He answered:

"It's clear enough, I guess; but it's more than I can take in. Seems to
me the women folks are hollering at the men folks to give 'em what the
men folks have never been able to get for themselves."

It was peevish. Coming from Pop, it amounted to an outburst, a riot, a
mutiny. Such a tendency was dangerous. He must be sharply repressed at
once--as a new servant must be taught her place. _Mere_ administered the
necessary rebuke, aided and abetted by the daughters. The sons did not
rally to their father's defense. He was soon reduced to submission, but
his apology was further irritation:

"I'm kind of rattled like. I ain't feeling as chipper as usual."
"Chip