gh for me--it is good enough for
anybody."

The people gasped with the audacity of it! The impersonation was
so good--it was weird--it was uncanny. Yet there was no word of
disrespect. The Premier's nearest friends could not resent it.

Word for word, she proceeded with his speech, while the theatre rocked
with laughter. She was in the Premier's most playful, God-bless-you
mood, and simply radiated favors and goodwill. The delegation was
flattered, complimented, patted on the head, as she dilated on their
manly beauty and charm.

In the third seat from the back, Mr. Robertson Jones had removed his
dark glasses, and was breathing like a man with double pneumonia. A
dull, red rage burned in his heart, not so much at anything the girl
was saying, as the perfectly idiotic way the people laughed.

"I shouldn't laugh," a woman ahead of him said, as she wiped her
eyes, "for my husband has a Government job and he may lose it if the
Government members see me but if I don't laugh, I'll choke. Better
lose a job than choke."

"But my dear young friends," the Premier was saying, "I am convinced
you do not know what you are asking me to do;" her tone was didactic
now; she was a patient Sunday School teacher, laboring with a class of
erring boys, charitable to their many failings and frailties, hopeful
of their ultimate destiny, "you do not know what you ask. You have not
thought of it, of course, with the natural thoughtlessness of your
sex. You ask for something which may disrupt the whole course of
civilization. Man's place is to provide for his family, a hard enough
task in these strenuous days. We hear of women leaving home, and we
hear it with deepest sorrow. Do you know why women leave home? There
is a reason. Home is not made sufficiently attractive. Would letting
politics enter the home help matters. Ah no! Politics would unsettle
our men. Unsettled men mean unsettled bills--unsettled bills mean
broken homes--broken vows--and then divorce."

Her voice was heavy with sorrow, and full of apology for having
mentioned anything so unpleasant.

Many of the audience had heard the Premier's speech, and almost all
had read it, so not a point was lost.

An exalted mood was on her now--a mood that they all knew well. It
had carried elections. It was the Premier's highest card. His friends
called it his magnetic appeal.

"Man has a higher destiny than politics," she cried, with the ring in
her voice that they had heard so oft